AN   AMERICAN 
IN    THE    MAKING 


AN  AMERICAN 
IN  THE  MAKING 

The  Life  Story  of 
an  Immigrant 
by  M.  E.  RAVAGE 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 


£ 


AN  AMERICAN  IN  THE  MAKING 


Copyright,   1917,   by  Harper  &   Brothers 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


AFFECTIONATELY     DEDICATED 
TO     MY    WOMEN-FOLKS 

JEANNE   AND    SUZANNE 


442.136 


INTRODUCTION 

WHEN  I  hear  all  around  me  the  foolish  prattle 
about  the  new  immigration — "the  scum  of 
Europe,"  as  it  is  called — that  is  invading  and  making 
itself  master  of  this  country,  I  cannot  help  saying  to 
myself  that  Americans  have  forgotten  America.  The 
native,  I  must  conclude,  has,  by  long  familiarity  with 
the  rich  blessings  of  his  own  land,  grown  forgetful  of 
his  high  privileges  and  ceased  to  grasp  the  lofty  mes 
sage  which  America  wafts  across  the  seas  to  all  the 
oppressed  of  mankind.  What,  I  wonder,  do  they  know 
of  America,  who  know  only  America? 

The  more  I  think  upon  the  subject  the  more  I  become 
persuaded  that  the  relation  of  the  teacher  and  the 
taught  as  between  those  who  were  born  and  those  who 
came  here  must  be  reversed.  It  is  the  free  American 
who  needs  to  be  instructed  by  the  benighted  races  in 
the  uplifting  word  that  America  speaks  to  all  the  world. 
Only  from  the  humble  immigrant,  it  appears  to  me,  can 
he  learn  just  what  America  stands  for  in  the  family  of 
nations.  The  alien  must  know  this,  for  he  alone  seems 
ready  to  pay  the  heavy  price  for  his  share  of  America. 
He,  unlike  the  older  inhabitant,  does  not  come  into  its 


INTRODUCTION 

inheritance  by  the  accident  of  birth.  Before  he  can 
become  an  American  he  must  first  be  an  immigrant. 
More  than  that,  back  of  immigration  lies  emigration. 
And  to  him  alone  is  it  given  to  know  the  bitter  sacrifice 
and  the  deep  upheaval  of  the  soul  that  are  implied  in 
those  two  words. 

The  average  American,  when  he  thinks  of  im 
migrants  at  all,  thinks,  I  am  afraid,  of  something 
rather  comical.  He  thinks  of  bundles — funny,  pictu 
resque  bundles  of  every  shape  and  size  and  color.  The 
alien  himself,  in  his  incredible  garb,  as  he  walks  off  the 
gang-plank,  appears  like  some  sort  of  an  odd,  moving 
bundle.  And  always  he  carries  more  bundles.  Later 
on,  in  his  peculiar,  transplanted  life,  he  sells  nondescript 
merchandise  in  fantastic  vehicles,  does  violence  to  the 
American's  language,  and  sits  down  on  the  curb  to  eat 
fragrant  cheese  and  unimaginable  sausages.  He  is,  for 
certain,  a  character  fit  for  a  farce. 

So,  I  think,  you  see  him,  you  fortunate  ones  who 
have  never  had'to  come  to  America.  I  am  afraid  that 
the  pathos  and  the  romance  of  the  story  are  quite  lost 
on  you.  Yet  both  are  there  as  surely  as  the  comedy. 
No  doubt,  when  you  go  slumming,  you  reflect  sympa 
thetically  on  the  drudgery  and  the  misery  of  the  immi 
grant's  life.  But  poverty  and  hard  toil  are  not  tragic 
things.  They  indeed  are  part  of  the  comedy.  Tragedy 
lies  seldom  on  the  surface.  If  you  would  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  pathos  and  the  romance  of  readjustment  you 
must  try  to  put  yourself  in  the  alien's  place.  And  that 


INTRODUCTION 

you  may  find  hard  to  do.  Well,  try  to  think  of  leave- 
taking — of  farewells  to  home  and  kindred,  in  all  likeli 
hood  never  to  be  seen  again;  of  last  looks  lingering 
affectionately  on  things  and  places;  of  ties  broken  and 
grown  stronger  in  the  breaking.  Try  to  think  of  the 
deep  upheaval  of  the  human  soul,  pulled  up  by  the 
roots  from  its  ancient,  precious  soil,  cast  abroad  among 
you  here,  withering  for  a  space,  then  slowly  finding 
nourishment  in  the  new  soil,  and  once  more  thriving — 
not,  indeed,  as  before — a  novel,  composite  growth.  If 
you  can  see  this  you  may  form  some  idea  of  the  sadness 
and  the  glory  of  his  adventure. 

Oh,  if  I  could  show  you  America  as  we  of  the 
oppressed  peoples  see  it!  If  I  could  bring  home  to  you 
even  the  smallest  fraction  of  this  sacrifice  and  this 
upheaval,  the  dreaming  and  the  strife,  the  agony  and 
the  heartache,  the  endless  disappointments,  the  yearn 
ing  and  the  despair — all  of  which  must  be  ours  before 
we  can  make  a  home  for  our  battered  spirits  in  this 
land  of  yours.  Perhaps,  if  we  be  young,  we  dream  of 
riches  and  adventure,  and  if  we  be  grown  men  we  may 
merely  seek  a  haven  for  our  outraged  human  souls  and 
a  safe  retreat  for  our  hungry  wives  and  children.  Yet, 
however  aggrieved  we  may  feel  toward  our  native  home, 
we  cannot  but  regard  our  leaving  it  as  a  violent  severing 
of  the  ties  of  our  life,  and  look  beyond  toward  our 
new  home  as  a  sort  of  glorified  exile.  So,  whether  we 
be  young  or  old,  something  of  ourselves  we  always 
leave  behind  in  our  hapless,  cherished  birthplaces.  And 


INTRODUCTION 

the  heaviest  share  of  our  burden  inevitably  falls  on  the 
loved  ones  that  remain  when  we  are  gone.  We  make 
no  illusions  for  ourselves.  Though  we  may  expect 
wealth,  we  have  no  thought  of  returning.  It  is  farewell 
forever.  We  are  not  setting  out  on  a  trip;  we  are 
emigrating.  Yes,  we  are  emigrating,  and  there  is  our 
experience,  our  ordeal,  in  a  nutshell.  It  is  the  one-way 
passport  for  us  every  time.  For  we  have  glimpsed  a 
vision  of  America,  and  we  start  out  resolved  that, 
whatever  the  cost,  we  shall  make  her  our  own.  In  our 
heavy-laden  hearts  we  are  already  Americans.  In  our 
own  dumb  way  we  have  grasped  her  message  to  us. 

Yes,  we  immigrants  have  a  real  claim  on  America. 
Every  one  of  us  who  did  not  grow  faint-hearted  at  the 
start  of  the  battle  and  has  stuck  it  out  has  earned  a 
share  in  America  by  the  ancient  right  of  conquest.  We 
have  had  to  subdue  this  new  home  of  ours  to  make  it 
habitable,  and  in  conquering  it  we  have  conquered 
ourselves.  We  are  not  what  we  were  when  you  saw 
us  landing  from  the  Ellis  Island  ferry.  Our  own 
kinsfolk  do  not  know  us  when  they  come  over.  We 
sometimes  hardly  know  ourselves. 


PART    I 
THE    ALIEN  AT   HOME 


AN    AMERICAN 
IN    THE    MAKING 


THE  PROPHET  FROM  AMERICA 

EVEN  an  imaginative  American,  I  suppose,  must 
find  it  very  hard  to  form  anything  like  a  just  idea 
of  the  tremendous  adventure  involved  in  the  act  of 
immigration.  The  alien  in  our  midst  is  too  elusive  an 
object  for  satisfactory  study.  He  changes  too  rapidly. 
But  yesterday  he  was  a  solid  citizen  in  his  particular 
village  of  Sicily  or  Rumania,  of  a  piece  with  his  ancestral 
background,  surrounded  by  friends  and  kindred, 
apparently  rooted  in  his  native  soil.  To-day  he  is 
adrift  in  a  foreign  world,  mute  and  helpless  and  tragi 
cally  ridiculous — a  soul  in  purgatory,  a  human  creature 
cut  from  its  moorings,  the  most  pitiable  sight  to  be  met 
on  this  earth.  To-morrow?  Who  knows?  To 
morrow  very  probably  you  will  find  him  a  prosperous 
citizen  again,  very  earnestly  devoting  himself  to  some 
strange — until  recently  undreamed-of — business,  giving 

Copyright,  1917,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 


AN   AMERICAN   IN    THE    MAKING 

orders  or  taking  them,  even  now  perhaps  a  bit  dis 
cordant  against  his  new  setting,  and,  except  for  one  or 
two  well-hidden  scars,  none  the  worse  apparently  for 
his  translation.  Who  shall  find  the  patience  to  follow 
him  in  his  tortuous  career? 

What  is  surely  most  amazing  is  that  he  should  have 
started  out  at  all.  Considering  the  pangs  of  separation 
and  the  risks  that  warn  and  threaten  him  and  beset 
his  path,  why,  you  might  ask,  should  he  want  to 
emigrate?  Is  it  the  dream  of  avarice?  Yes,  in  part. 
And  the  hope  of  freedom?  Without  a  doubt.  But 
these  are  general  motives  and  remote.  The  far-flung 
clarion  call  of  American  liberty  and  her  promise  of 
equal  opportunity  are  the  powerful  lodestones  that 
draw  all  immigrants  alike.  There  are  more  particular 
motives  than  these  to  spur  him  on.  Even  freedom  and 
economic  independence  have  a  varying  meaning  to 
individual  aliens.  Station  in  life,  and  nationality,  and 
age,  all  play  their  part  in  composing  his  mental  picture 
of  America.  And,  as  in  war,  so  also  in  emigration, 
there  are  always  immediate  causes  as  well  as  remote  and 
general  ones. 

I  have  myself  been  asked  hundreds  of  times  why  I 
have  come  to  America,  and  I  trust  that  there  was  no 
malice  in  the  question.  As  a  rule,  I  have  pointed  to  the 
usual  reasons.  I  explained  that  at  home  in  Vaslui,  and 
in  Rumania  generally,  there  was  very  little  opportunity 
for  a  young  man  to  make  anything  of  himself.  My 
parents  had  ambitions  for  me  which  their  clinging, 

4 


THE    PROPHET   FROM   AMERICA 

hopeless  poverty  made  impossible  of  attainment.  And 
I  was  only  a  child  of  sixteen,  and  I  longed  for  the  great 
world  with  its  rich  prizes  and  its  still  richer  adventures. 
My  soul  was  thrilled  with  the  dream  of  conquest  and 
the  pious  hope  of  delivering  my  family  from  want  and 
oppression.  But  while  all  this  is  true,  it  was  not  the 
whole  truth.  In  fact,  I  quite  omitted  from  my  account 
the  most  vital,  because  it  was  the  most  direct,  cause  of 
my  migration. 

The  remainder  of  the  truth  is  that  in  the  year  of  my 
departure  from  Vaslui  America  had  become,  as  it  were, 
the  fashionable  place  to  go  to.  Hitherto  it  had  been 
but  a  name,  and  by  no  means  a  revered  name.  But 
suddenly  America  had  flashed  upon  our  consciousness 
and  fanned  our  dormant  souls  to  flames  of  consuming 
ambition.  All  my  relatives  and  all  our  neighbors — in 
fact,  everybody  who  was  anybody — had  either  gone  or 
was  going  to  New  York.  I  call  it  New  York,  but  you 
as  Americans  ought  to  be  informed  that  the  correct 
spelling  is  Nev-York,  as  every  refined  person  in  Vaslui 
knows. 

I  did  not,  then,  as  you  see,  come  alone,  to  America. 
I  came  with  the  rest  of  the  population  of  Vaslui.  And 
Vaslui  was  merely  a  sort  of  scouting-party,  to  be 
followed  directly  by  the  main  army.  It  has  probably 
been  forgotten  in  this  country,  if  indeed  it  was  generally 
noted  at  the  time,  that  about  the  year  1900  there  was 
what,  to  my  eyes,  appeared  to  be  a  national  migration 
from  Rumania  to  New  York,  a  migration  which  seemed 

5 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE   MAKING 

literally  to  include  well-nigh  the  whole  Rumanian 
race. 

What  had  so  suddenly  raised  the  prestige  of  New 
York  among  the  Vasluianders  and  the  Moldavian 
traveling  public  generally,  I  am  in  an  excellent  position 
to  relate,  for  it  so  happened  that  the  principal  agent  in 
this  grand  scheme  of  advertising  among  us  the  attrac 
tions  of  New  York  was  a  not  distant  relative  of  my  own. 
I  am  well  aware  that  such  services  as  his  ought  not  to 
go  unrewarded,  and  I  know  that  already  your  curiosity 
about  his  identity  is  getting  the  better  of  you,  but  until 
a  committee  of  representative  New-Yorkers  assures  me 
of  its  appreciation  of  mine  and  my  countrymen's 
patronage,  I  feel  in  honor  bound  to  respect  my  kins 
man's  modesty  and  to  guard  his  secret.  Meantime  you 
shall  know  him  by  the  name  of  Couza.  Couza  is  a 
royal  Rumanian  cognomen,  and  my  relative,  whether 
by  divine  gift  or  forethought,  had  an  unmistakable 
royal  air,  at  least  while  he  was  in  Vaslui. 

Couza,  then,  put  in  an  appearance  in  our  town  during 
the  winter  of  1899,  after  an  absence  in  America  of  some 
fourteen  years.  For  months  before,  if  you  had  put 
your  ear  to  the  ground,  you  might  have  heard  the 
distant  rumble  of  his  approach,  and  Vaslui  held  not 
only  its  ear  to  the  ground,  but  its  breath.  It  seemed  to 
us  that  our  life  had  been  hitherto  dull  and  common, 
but  that  at  last  it  was  to  be  tipped  with  glory  and 
romance.  Couza's  brother  Jacob  became  overnight  the 
first  citizen  of  the  town,  and  this  reflected  glory  was 

6 


THE    PROPHET    FROM    AMERICA 

shared  by  all  our  family.  Those  daily  letters  that 
Jacob  received  were  inquired  after  by  the  whole  com 
munity.  They  became,  in  the  truest  sense,  Vaslui's 
first  newspaper,  for  they  contained  the  only  intelligence 
we  cared  to  hear  about.  Now  he  was  embarking  at 
Nev-York,  and  now  he  had  landed  at  Havre.  A  long 
succession  of  bulletins  reported  him  at  the  various 
capitals  and  great  cities  of  Europe.  He  was  coming, 
coming,  coming.  The  air  was  growing  too  thick  for 
respiration.  On  the  street,  in  the  market,  at  the 
synagogue,  we  kept  asking  one  another  the  one  ques 
tion,  "When  will  he  arrive?" 

At  last  the  long-awaited  telegram  flashed  over  us, 
and  I  shall  never  forget  my  terrible  disappointment  on 
learning  its  message.  For  weeks  I  had  been  training 
in  the  boys'  chorus  which  was  to  welcome  the  guest  on 
his  arrival.  And  now,  at  the  last  moment,  he  had  cold 
bloodedly  decided  to  come  in  on  the  midnight  train. 
The  choral  reception  had,  therefore,  to  be  abandoned. 
Vaslui  must  content  itself  with  a  mere  representative 
committee  of  citizens  and  restrain  its  pent-up  enthusi 
asm  as  best  it  might  till  the  morrow.  I  have  a  very 
vivid  recollection  of  that  night  of  Couza's  arrival,  for, 
although  I  was  deprived  of  a  direct  share  in  the  recep 
tion,  I  had  a  partial  reward  for  my  disappointment  in 
the  reflected  splendor  that  fell  upon  me  through  my 
father.  He,  being  one  of  the  guest's  family,  was 
chosen  a  member  of  the  welcoming  committee;  and 
toward  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  he  burst  into  the 
2  7 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

house  trailing  clouds  of  glory  from  his  rare  experience. 
We  had  been  tossing  about  for  several  intolerable 
hours,  wondering  whether  he  ever  would  get  back.  No 
sooner  did  we  hear  his  key  in  the  door  than  we  leaped 
up  in  our  beds  and  greeted  him  with  a  chorus  of  inquiry 
that  nearly  frightened  him. 

"Is  he  here?"  we  yelled  all  together. 

"Is  he?  Well,  I  should  rather  say  so!"  father  cried, 
breathlessly,  and  still  in  the  dark. 

Then  followed  things  amazing.  For  hours  that 
seemed  like  brief  moments  we  sat  agape,  listening  to 
a  detailed  account  of  the  arrival  and  a  somewhat 
bewildering  word-picture  of  the  personage  himself. 

"You  should  see  the  old  boy,"  my  parent  began. 
"It  seems  only  like  yesterday  when  I  used  to  see  him 
in  these  very  streets,  a  slouchy,  unprepossessing 
youngster,  with  his  toes  out  at  his  gaping  boot-tips, 
carrying  heavy  cans  of  milk  around  for  his  mother. 
Remember,  mamma,  he  used  to  bring  us  our  liter  every 
morning  before  we  got  our  own  cow?  And  do  you 
remember  how  your  brother  Samuel  never  tired  of 
telling  us  what  a  dunce  the  urchin  was  at  school? 
Ah,  this  Nev-York  must  be  a  wonderful  place.  Why, 
I  did  not  know  him  at  all  when  he  stepped  off  the  car, 
not  until  Jacob  rushed  up  to  him  and  was  followed  by 
the  whole  cheering  lot  of  us.  At  first  I  thought  he  was 
a  rov  [rabbi];  he  is  so  large,  and  stout,  and  dignified. 
He  wore  a  long,  black  frock-coat  and  a  high  hat — just 
the  kind  that  Reb  Sander  wears  on  Saturdays  at  the 

8 


THE    PROPHET   FROM   AMERICA 

services.  But  when  I  got  up  nearer  to  him,  I  noticed 
that  he  was  clean-shaven.  Would  you  believe  it?  He 
did  not  even  have  a  mustache.  I  never  saw  so  many 
trunks  and  bags  in  all  my  life  as  they  unloaded  for  him. 
And  jewelry!  He  had  diamonds  in  his  cravat  and 
brilliants  on  his  fingers,  and  a  magnificent  gold  chain 
from  which  hung  a  great  locket  stuck  full  of  more 
diamonds.  He  is  a  millionaire,  if  ever  there  was  one  in 
America." 

This  was  very  exciting  and  altogether  astonishing  in 
many  ways.  It  suddenly  revealed  America  to  us  in  a 
new  light;  for  you  must  not  suppose  that  we  were  so 
ignorant  as  never  to  have  heard  of  the  place  at  all. 
The  name  Nev-York  was,  indeed,  rather  new,  and  we 
admired  father  a  good  deal  for  throwing  it  so  glibly  into 
his  account.  But  then  you  could  not  expect  us  to 
know  the  whole  map  of  America  in  detail.  Of  Amer 
ica,  however,  we  had  heard  considerable  on  several 
occasions.  Whenever  a  Vasluiander  went  into  bank 
ruptcy,  and  whenever  a  soldier  wearied  of  the  discipline 
and  deserted,  it  was  bruited  abroad  that  he  had  "run 
away  to  America."  There  was  a  female  beggar  in  the 
town  whom  mother  always  singled  out  for  special 
kindnesses.  I  used  to  wonder  about  her,  until  one  day 
I  learned  that  she  had  once  been  the  well-to-do  mistress 
of  a  home  of  her  own,  but  that  her  husband  had  tired 
of  her  and  escaped  to  America.  I  had  thus  come  to 
think  of  the  place  as  a  city  of  refuge,  an  exile  which  men 
fled  to  only  in  preference  to  going  to  prison. 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE   MAKING 

I  had  heard  of  people  going  to  Vienna  and  Germany 
and  Paris,  and  even  to  England  for  business  or  pleasure, 
but  no  one,  to  my  knowledge,  had  ever  gone  to  America 
of  his  own  free  will.  And  of  those  who  went,  consider 
ing  the  circumstances  of  their  departure,  none  ever 
returned  to  tell  us  what  it  was  like,  any  more  than  if 
they  had  gone  to  the  other  world.  In  fact,  a  person 
gone  to  America  was  exactly  like  a  person  dead.  That 
was  why,  on  those  rare  occasions  when  a  family  followed 
its  breadwinner  to  that  distant  land,  the  whole  com 
munity  turned  out,  and  marched  in  slow  time  to  the 
station,  and  wept  loudly  and  copiously,  and  remembered 
the  unfortunates  in  its  prayer  on  the  next  Saturday. 

I  said  that  no  one  had  ever  returned  from  America. 
But  there  was  one  exception;  and  I  mention  it  here 
because  the  individual  was  destined  to  become  the 
villain  in  the  piece  which  I  am  here  transcribing.  It 
was  commonly  gossiped  in  Vaslui  that  Itza  Baer,  who 
was  hand-in-glove  with  officialdom,  and  whom  every 
one  feared  and  flattered  as  a  notorious  informer,  had 
years  before  returned  from  America,  where  he  must 
have  had  a  stormy  and  ignominious  career,  because 
whenever  anybody  ventured  to  ask  him  about  it,  he 
would  merely  say  that  he  preferred  to  serve  his  term 
than  to  live  a  dog's  life  in  exile,  and  forthwith  change 
the  subject. 

This  Itza  Baer  was  at  first  decidedly  friendly  to  the 
news  of  Couza's  coming.  When  the  time  arrived  he 
even  went  so  far  as  to  consent  to  serve  on  the  committee, 

10 


THE    PROPHET   FROM   AMERICA 

and  at  the  station  he  was,  according  to  father's  report, 
one  of  the  first  to  greet  the  arrival.  Father  went  into 
circumstantial  detail  in  his  account  of  this  historic 
greeting.  He  said  that  the  rest  of  the  committee  drew 
back  a  step  and  stood  around  in  solemn  awe  while  the 
two  Americans  exchanged  compliments  in  English. 
But  the  odd  thing  was  that  Itza  Baer  ever  after  had  an 
ironical  smile  about  his  lips  and  an  impish  twinkle  in 
his  eye  when  referring  to  that  English  conversation. 
He  was  never  seen  speaking  to  Couza  again,  except  at 
the  temple  on  the  Saturday  following  the  event,  and 
then  it  was  neither  in  English  nor  in  friendship.  A 
mysterious  coldness  seemed  to  have  developed  between 
the  two  men  almost  from  the  start;  and  when  Vaslui 
fell  down  on  its  knees  and  worshiped  Couza  as  the 
great  man  he  was,  Itza  Baer's  jealousy — for  jealousy 
was  all  it  could  be — turned  into  whispered  threats  at 
first,  and  finally  into  open  hostility. 

On  the  morrow  after  the  arrival  I  saw  him.  I  saw 
him  on  the  first  of  those  impressive  progresses  which 
were  to  become  a  regular,  but  not  a  common,  sight  in 
the  daily  life  of  our  town  for  the  next  fortnight.  He  was 
riding  slowly  in  a  droshka,  smiling  happily,  and  bowing 
unpretentiously  to  the  populace.  The  streets  were 
lined  with  craning,  round-eyed,  tiptoeing  Vasluianders, 
open-mouthed  peasants,  and  gay-attired  holiday  visitors 
from  neighboring  towns  who,  having  heard  of  the  glory 
that  had  come  to  Vaslui,  had  driven  in  in  their  ox-carts 
and  dog-carts  to  partake  of  it.  I  have  sometimes  seen 

11 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

the  king  ride  in  state  through  these  same  streets,  and 
have  heard  the  throng  shouting,  "Trdiascd  Regele!" 
But  this  occasion  was  not  boisterous,  but  dignified  and 
solemn.  Vaslui  seemed  too  full  for  idle  noisemaking. 
It  seemed  to  feel  that  while  the  king  was  no  doubt  a 
fine  fellow  and  all  that,  he  had  not  come  all  the  way 
from  Nev-York,  he  had  not  brought  with  him  any 
dozen  trunks,  he  did  not  speak  English,  and  wear 
diamonds,  and  dress  in  a  different  frock-coat  every 
day.  Quite  the  contrary:  the  king  had  on  the  same 
uniform  every  time  he  came  to  Vaslui.  He  was,  after 
all,  a  sort  of  exaggerated  army  officer  with  an  un 
necessary  amount  of  gold  lace  and  other  trappings  about 
his  person.  He,  like  all  military  folk,  might  care  for 
show  and  shouts.  But  an  American  millionaire  was 
not  a  clown  or  a  bear  to  be  clapped  at. 

Why,  he  was  the  most  modest  and  the  simplest  of 
men.  Any  other  man  of  his  great  wealth  would  have 
put  on  airs  and  gone  to  the  Hotel  Regal,  the  exclusive 
stopping-place  in  Vaslui  for  all  mere  aristocrats.  In 
stead,  he  went  to  his  brother's  home  and  unassumingly 
shared  the  humble  quarters  of  his  family.  That 
appeared  to  be  his  way.  Whatever  was  good  for  one 
man  was  good  enough  for  every  man.  He  never  spoke 
of  his  wealth;  indeed,  he  looked  embarrassed  and  un 
comfortable  whenever  the  subject  was  alluded  to.  He 
positively  disliked  to  talk  about  himself  in  any  fashion. 

He  let  his  actions  speak  for  him  and  all  that  he 
represented,  and  from  his  actions  Vaslui  was  forced  to 

12 


THE    PROPHET    FROM    AMERICA 

draw  the  right  conclusion.  The  sheer  extravagance  of 
that  trunkful  of  presents  he  had  brought  from  America 
for  the  immediate  members  of  his  family  spoke  volumes 
for  his  generosity  and  the  abundance  of  his  means. 
There  was  the  neat  little  razor  in  the  leather  case  for 
his  brother  Jacob  which  a  child  could  use  without 
cutting  himself  and  which  was  reputed  to  cost  no  less 
than  ten  francs.  Then  came  the  wonderful  penholder 
for  his  sister-in-law,  which,  as  Couza  explained  at  some 
length,  dispensed  with  ink-wells  and  drew  its  life-fluid 
from  some  mysterious  source.  The  children,  too,  were 
by  no  means  forgotten.  There  were  railways  that  were 
wound  up  like  clocks  and  ran  around  in  their  tracks 
like  real  trains,  and  dancing  negroes,  and  squawking 
dolls,  and  jews'-harps,  and  scores  of  other  delights  for 
the  palate  as  well  as  the  fancy.  And  then  the  climax 
was  capped  when  Couza  himself  drew  forth  out  of  that 
trunk  of  wonders  the  final  package  and  proceeded  to 
unwrap  therefrom  endless  reams  of  tissue-paper,  and 
just  as  his  spectators  were  about  to  succumb  to  the 
torments  of  breathless  curiosity,  held  it  up  and  presented 
it  to  his  old  mother — a  musical  box  to  the  value  of 
twenty-five  francs. 

Moreover,  no  one  but  a  millionaire  could  have  be 
haved  as  he  behaved  in  the  synagogue  on  the  memorable 
Saturday  following  his  arrival.  It  was  the  usual 
custom  for  a  distinguished  guest  to  be  honored  with  a 
reading  of  the  Law,  and  it  was  expected  from  him,  in 
turn,  to  make  a  suitable  offering  in  return  for  the 

13 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

honor.  But  when  the  official  reader  paused  for  the 
donor  to  fill  in  the  blank,  Couza  calmly  and  very 
distinctly  said,  "One  hundred  and  twenty -five  francs," 
and  looked  modestly  about  at  the  astounded  faces  of 
the  congregation.  That  donation  simply  transcended 
our  imagination.  The  high- water  mark  until  that  day 
and  for  years  past  had  been  recorded  by  Eliezer  Kauf 
man,  the  wealthy  merchant,  now  dead,  who  had  once 
in  an  extravagant  moment  subscribed  five  francs;  and 
the  old  men  in  Vaslui  still  talked  of  it  in  awed  tones. 
A  hundred  and  twenty-five  francs!  Why,  even  when 
crops  were  bumpers  a  grain-merchant  could  garner  no 
more  than  that  in  a  month.  The  sum  would  bring  a 
team  of  oxen,  pay  two  years'  rent  for  a  house  in  town, 
or  very  nearly  buy  a  modest  dwelling  in  the  country. 

From  that  day  on  Vaslui  became  a  changed  town. 
Hitherto  we  had  been  content  to  gaze  in  abstracted 
admiration  at  the  splendid  phenomenon  and  the  dim, 
romantic  land  that  lay  behind  him.  But  now  the 
shimmering  apparition  had  become  a  solid  reality.  We 
had  seen  with  our  own  eyes,  and  had  heard  with  our 
own  ears,  the  concrete  thing  that  it  meant  to  be  an 
American  millionaire,  and  Vaslui  suddenly  felt  a  vast 
ambition  stirring  in  its  galloping  heart.  Gone  was  the 
languor,  the  easy-going  indifference,  the  resignation, 
the  despair  that  once  dwelt  in  the  lines  of  our  faces. 
We  became  a  bustling,  seething,  hopeful  community. 
A  star  had  risen  in  heaven  to  lead  us  out  of  the 
wilderness. 

14 


II 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  NEW  YORK 

r  I  iHE  very  next  day  my  father  took  me  by  the  hand 
A  and  marched  me  straight  up  to  Great  Headquar 
ters.  He  had  done  some  deep  thinking  all  night  and  had 
apparently  worked  up  an  exceedingly  clever  scheme.  At 
least  I  supposed  it  was  clever  until  we  reached  our  desti 
nation.  I  had  been  given  only  the  broadest  outline  of  it, 
but  I  gathered  from  that  that  it  was  essentially  a  plan  to 
induce  Couza  to  take  me  to  America  with  him  when  he 
returned,  details  to  be  worked  out  later.  When,  however, 
we  got  within  a  block  of  Cousin  Jacob's  store  my  heart 
sank  and  father  turned  very  pale.  Here  was  a  line  of 
similarly  clever  fathers  with  equally  shamefaced  sons 
and  daughters,  extending  from  Jacob's  store  in  the 
front,  all  the  way  around  the  little  circular  park  which 
was  in  the  center  of  the  shopping  district;  and  another 
shorter  column  in  the  rear,  starting  from  the  back  door 
and  ending  a  block  away  at  the  gate  of  the  court-house. 
The  total  effect  was  of  two  opposing  armies  struggling 
for  the  capture  of  Jacob's  store  and  the  great  prize 
within.  And  every  father  and  son  there  claimed 
relationship  with  Couza,  and  was  ready,  I  suppose,  to 

15 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

back  it  up  with  documentary  evidence  and  a  flourishing 
family  tree.  I  had  never  realized  that  all  of  Vaslui 
belonged  to  my  family. 

It  was  just  at  this  time  that  the  notorious  Itza  Baer 
entered  upon  the  scene  in  real  earnest.  To  the  shame 
of  Vaslui  be  it  confessed  that  he  had  succeeded  in 
gathering  about  him  a  very  considerable  following,  and, 
strangely  enough,  among  men  who  had  hitherto  been 
held  in  high  esteem  for  their  integrity  and  shrewdness. 
It  is  at  such  stirring  times  as  these  that  men  go  astray. 
When  one  or  two  of  those  whom  Couza  had  felt  obliged 
to  discourage  in  their  emigration  plans  chanced  to 
speak  of  their  disappointment,  Itza  Baer  suggested  that 
they  might  offer  to  share  their  first  million  with  Couza 
in  return  for  the  passage  across.  He  and  his  followers 
organized  themselves  into  an  anti-Couza  committee, 
which  made  ridiculous  claims  of  seeking  to  save  Vaslui, 
and  in  the  end  they  very  nearly  succeeded  in  ruining 
the  hope  of  the  town. 

From  the  day  of  the  great  incident  at  the  synagogue 
rumors  of  an  infinite  variety  had  gained  currency 
regarding  certain  phases  in  Couza's  career  in  America. 
No  one  was  able  to  trace  them  to  their  source,  but  they 
kept  issuing  with  ever-increasing  frequency  and  with 
the  emphasis  of  unquestionable  truth.  We  tried  to 
discuss  them  with  Couza  himself,  but  he  could  not  be 
induced  either  to  confirm  or  to  deny  them.  He  would 
simply  smile  confusedly,  and  declare  that  everything 
was  possible  in  New  York.  But  at  the  end  of  that 

16 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    NEW    YORK 

week  a  report  of  the  most  stupendous  sort  reached  our 
ears.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  our  guest  was  not  merely 
a  millionaire,  but  that  he  held  a  very  high  government 
position  in  America,  something  resembling  a  prefect  or 
a  minister.  This  time  we  besieged  him  and  insisted  on 
knowing  the  truth.  For  this  news  was  no  matter  of 
mere  personal  glory  for  an  individual.  It  revealed  one 
side  of  that  wonderful  America  that  we  had  not  thought 
of  before.  One  could  get  rich,  once  in  a  while,  even  in 
Rumania.  But  that  our  humble,  downtrodden  people 
could  not  only  vote,  but  be  voted  for  and  hold  office  in 
New  York,  was  a  revelation  of  the  most  startling  and 
inspiriting  kind. 

This  time,  I  say,  we  would  not  be  put  off  with  modest 
blushes.  Couza,  of  course,  tried  to  hedge  about  by 
admitting  that  people  of  our  kind  might  become  mem 
bers  of  the  Government,  that  religion  in  America  was  a 
private  matter  unconnected  with  politics,  and  that  he 
had  himself  heard  of  an  American  President  by  the 
name  of  Abraham  (he  could  not  remember  his  other 
name).  But  while  all  this  was  gratifying  to  a  degree, 
Vaslui  demanded  to  know  the  whole  truth.  Was  it 
true  that  he  himself  was  the  prefect  of  Nev-York?  If 
it  was,  then  nothing  else  mattered,  because  everything 
was  as  clear  as  day.  Finally  the  conference  ended  in  a 
compromise.  Of  the  prefecture  of  New  York  he  could 
by  no  means  be  persuaded  to  speak,  but  after  long  and 
cruel  drilling  and  cross-examining  he  did  confess  that 
his  visit  to  Vaslui  was  only  a  side-trip  incidental  to  his 

17 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

commissions  in  Paris  as  a  special  representative  of  the 
American  Government  to  the  World's  Exposition  and 
the  Proces  Dreyfus. 

After  that  confession  Couza's  modesty  dropped  from 
him  like  a  mask.  Once  his  mouth  had  been  forced  open, 
he  found  great  difficulty  in  closing  it  again  until  we 
knew  as  much  about  New  York  as  he  did,  which  is  to 
say  everything.  He  seemed  eager  now  to  make  us 
realize  how  dull  and  circumscribed  and  enslaving  was 
our  existence  in  Rumania,  and  then  point  in  contrast 
to  the  freedom  and  the  wealth  and  the  beauty  of  that 
City  of  God  which  was  New  York.  There  were  many 
ways  of  getting  rich  in  America,  he  told  us.  People 
got  paid,  it  seemed,  even  for  voting.  A  mere  slip  of  a 
girl  could  earn  fifty  francs  a  week  at  making  blouses. 
Girls,  indeed,  were  not  a  burden  there  as  they  were  in 
Vaslui.  In  America  the  richest  young  ladies  earned 
their  own  living,  fed  and  clothed  themselves,  and  saved 
up  the  necessary  dowry  to  get  a  husband  with.  In 
fact,  girls  were  altogether  an  enviable  asset  to  their 
parents.  A  man  who  had  a  half-dozen  grown 
daughters,  or  even  a  skilful  wife,  could  be  independent 
and  free  for  the  rest  of  his  natural  life. 

One  of  the  trunks  that  Couza  had  brought  with  him, 
we  were  to  learn,  was  filled  with  American  newspapers, 
and  with  their  help  he  preached  to  us  the  gospel  of 
New  York.  Seated  on  the  divan  in  that  vast  room  at 
the  rear  of  his  brother  Jacob's  store  which  constituted 
the  family's  apartment,  he  would  spread  before  him 

18 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    NEW    YORK 

one  of  those  extensive  sheets  and  delight  his  open- 
mouthed  callers  with  a  message  from  the  great  world  he 
had  come  from.  I  do  not  know  what  other  people  got 
out  of  those  readings,  but  I  myself  was  terribly  excited 
by  them,  so  that  for  months  afterward  I  dreamed  of 
nothing  but  ingenious  murders  and  daring  robberies 
committed  in  broad  daylight  by  clean-shaven  des 
peradoes  in  frock-coats  and  silk  hats.  I  conceived  of 
New  York  as  a  brave,  adventurous  sort  of  place  where 
life  was  a  perilous  business,  but  romantic  for  that  very 
reason. 

Those  American  newspapers  puzzled  us  considerably. 
We  had  expected  that  they  would  naturally  be  in 
English,  but  we  discovered  with  surprise  that  for  the 
most  part  they  were  printed  in  our  own  familiar 
Yiddish,  although  it  was  a  Yiddish  somewhat  corrupted, 
like  Couza's  own  speech,  with  a  curious  admixture  of 
strange  barbarisms.  Couza  laid  great  emphasis,  as  was 
most  natural,  on  the  unlimited  opportunities  for  earning 
money  in  New  York,  and  to  that  end  he  invited  our 
attention  to  the  pages  upon  pages  of  frantic  appeals 
from  America  for  every  variety  of  help.  It  was  vastly 
encouraging  to  hear  him  read  those  appeals  and  to 
know  how  badly  we  were  wanted  in  America.  But  we 
were  a  little  obtuse  at  times.  We  could  not  under 
stand,  for  instance,  why  any  one  should  want  a  dozen 
girls  to  keep  on  working  at  blouses  day  after  day  without 
end.  What  did  a  body  want  with  so  many  waists,  we 
asked  our  interpreter.  But  we  got  little  satisfaction  in 

19 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

this  regard.  He  seemed  to  delight  in  filling  his  mouth 
with  those  strange  long  words  that  somehow  got  into 
every  sentence  and  spoiled  its  meaning  for  us.  And  he 
showed,  I  thought,  decided  resentment  at  being  inter 
rupted  with  a  request  to  explain.  When  his  own 
brother  Jacob  asked  to  be  told  what  was  meant  by  a 
stenographer,  Couza  contented  himself  with  pointing 
the  moral  as  to  the  brutalizing  effect  of  living  in  such 
a  place  as  Vaslui,  where  grown  men  did  not  know  the 
things  that  every  child  in  New  York  knew.  That  was 
perhaps  a  bit  hard  on  my  poor  cousin,  but  even  he 
could  not  help  agreeing  with  Couza  and  hoping  all  the 
more  deeply,  in  consequence,  that  his  children  at  least 
might  some  day  get  out  into  the  civilized  world. 

If  any  proof  were  needed  of  Couza's  high  character 
and  noble  interests,  and  if  anything  could  effectively 
give  the  lie  to  the  unwarranted,  ill-tempered  slurs  of 
Itza  Baer  and  his  anti-Couza  party,  we  got  it  in  Couza's 
constant  references  to  education.  He  pointed  with 
profound  scorn  to  the  inferiority  of  the  Rumanian 
schools,  and  denounced  our  Government  bitterly  for 
forcing  us  to  pay  an  annual  tuition  rate  of  thirty  francs 
for  each  pupil  in  the  elementary  schools.  In  New 
York,  it  appeared,  education  was  to  be  got  altogether 
without  cost,  by  Jew  and  Gentile  alike,  by  day  or  by 
night.  The  Government  of  America  not  only  did  not 
exact  charges  for  instruction;  it  compelled  parents  to 
send  their  children  to  school,  and  it  begged  grown-ups 

to  come  and  be  educated  when  their  day's  work  was 

20 


THE    GOSPEL   OF    NEW   YORK 

over.  Couza  cited  instances  of  young  men  of  his  ac 
quaintance  who  had  become  doctors  and  lawyers,  and  of 
young  women  who  had  become  teachers  by  studying  at 
night  and  earning  their  living  in  the  daytime.  He  had 
himself  obtained  his  remarkable  education  in  that 
way. 

After  these  sessions  my  father  would  come  away 
flushed  with  enthusiasm  and  repeat,  excitedly, 
"America  is  good,  America  is  good ! "  He  had  long  been 
cherishing  the  hope  of  making  a  doctor  of  me,  but  he 
had  not  even  succeeded  in  getting  me  into  the  public 
school.  Every  fall  he  would  take  me  around  from 
No.  1  to  No.  2,  and  always  he  would  get  the  same 
answer:  "No  room."  I  knew  of  hundreds  of  other 
cases  like  my  own.  There  was  nothing  for  us  to  do  but 
to  go  to  the  little  private  institutes  and  pay  heavily 
for  the  scanty  instruction  we  got.  When  we  reached 
the  high-school  stage  matters  got  even  worse.  Vaslui 
did  have  a  gymnasium,  but  a  poor  fellow  had  not  a 
chance  in  the  world  of  getting  in.  The  tuition  was 
high,  the  school  was  overcrowded,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  have  a  certificate  of  graduation  from  a  public  school 
to  be  admitted.  The  nearest  university  was  at  Bu 
charest,  and  it  would  take  a  small  fortune  to  go  there 
and  a  very  large  one  to  make  ends  meet  during  the 
seven  or  eight  years  of  instruction,  supposing  that  one 
succeeded  in  getting  in.  Father  had  almost  given  up 
the  idea  in  despair  when  America  appeared  in  the  nick 
of  time  to  save  the  situation. 

21 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

Unhappily,  these  glorious  chats  about  America  were 
to  be  cut  short  with  tragic  swiftness.  Some  of  our 
townsfolk  were  too  insistent  about  their  own  selfish 
interests,  and  kept  pestering  him  with  their  requests  to 
be  taken  to  America.  One  night,  I  recall,  the  widow 
Shaindel  came  with  her  eight  children,  and  coaxed  and 
begged  and  cried.  She  promised  that  she  would  slave 
for  him,  and  clean  his  shoes,  and  scrub  his  mansion,  and 
care  for  his  horses,  and  weed  his  gardens,  if  only  he 
would  save  her  from  the  poverty  and  the  tax-gatherer  by 
taking  her  and  her  children  away  to  Nev-York.  When 
poor  Couza  could  no  longer  endure  the  painful  scene,  he 
ended  it  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  dignity.  "My  dear 
woman,"  he  said,  "do  you  take  me  for  a  millionaire?" 
Then  he  grew  very  confused  and  grunted  something  in 
his  deep,  bass  voice.  But  I  admired  him  for  the 
splendid  way  in  which  he  said  it.  It  gave  me  a  last 
glimpse  of  the  fine  modesty  of  the  old  Couza  of  the  pre- 
donation  period.  Yet  it  was  very  clear  that  scenes  of 
that  sort  were  cruelly  wearing  to  his  sympathetic  spirit, 
and  that  he  was  getting  restless  to  leave. 

At  the  end  of  Couza's  second  week  Itza  Baer  became 
shamelessly  hostile.  He  declared  that  he  could  no 
longer  stand  by  in  silence  while  "this  braggart"  was 
bringing  misery  and  discontent  upon  poor  people  just 
to  feed  his  own  vanity.  And  he  let  it  be  known  that 
he  intended  to  denounce  Couza  as  an  old  fugitive  from 
the  recruiting  officer.  When  Couza  heard  of  this  hi/, 
declared,  with  a  smile,  that  he  would  like  to  see  any 

22 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    NEW    YORK 

little  Rumanian  king  lay  hands  on  an  American  citizen. 
To  which  Itza  Baer  retorted  that  he  was  ready  to  bet 
his  beard  and  earlocks  that  the  pretended  American 
citizen  did  not  even  have  his  first  papers.  No  one  took 
him  up  on  that  because  of  the  obvious  technical  points 
involved.  But  the  next  morning  Vaslui  awoke  to  learn 
with  bitter  disappointment  that  a  telegram  from  Paris 
had  recalled  the  special  representative  to  his  duties. 
He  had  left  in  such  haste,  the  official  statement  added, 
that  he  had  not  even  taken  his  trunks.  The  glory  of 
our  city  was  gone  forever,  for,  although  the  hope  was 
held  out  to  us  that  he  would  return  for  another  short 
stay  and  for  his  costly  baggage  as  soon  as  Captain 
Dreyfus  had  had  his  trial,  we  never  saw  him  again.  He 
did  not  even  come  to  get  his  niece  whom  he  had 
promised  to  take  with  him  to  America,  but  contented 
himself  with  meeting  her  on  the  Hungarian  border. 
The  evident  dislike  he  had  taken  to  Vaslui  hurt  us 
sorely  and  puzzled  us  not  a  little,  although  we  might 
have  understood  that  a  man  of  his  caliber  could  not 
long  put  up  with  the  annoyances  he  had  been  subject 
ed  to.  Nothing  but  fear  of  the  law  prevented  my 
infuriated  fellow-townsmen  from  wreaking  terrible  ven 
geance  on  the  unspeakable  Itza  Baer,  who  had  the 
cheek  to  go  around  boasting  that  we  owed  him  a  debt 
of  gratitude  for  having^saved  us  from  a  dangerous 
impostor. 

But  if  Itza  Baer  or  any  one  else  had  imagined  that 
Couza's  mission  would  end  with  his  departure,  he  was 

3  23 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

to  learn  differently.  Indeed,  it  was  only  then  that  our 
great  guest's  preaching  and  example  began  to  have  their 
real  effect.  Now  that  he  was  gone,  Vaslui  could  stand 
off  and  see  the  vision  that  had  passed  over  it  in  true 
perspective.  It  became  quite  clear  to  us  that,  for  one 
thing,  Couza  had  done  something  with  his  fourteen 
years  in  America,  something  very  enviable  and  mag 
nificent.  We  realized,  of  course,  that  he  was  a  fine  and 
clever  fellow,  and  that  not  every  one  could  aspire  to  his 
attainments;  but,  we  argued,  if  a  man  of  genius  could 
in  so  short  a  time  become  a  millionaire  and  an  ambassa 
dor,  then  an  average  chap  ought  at  least  to  have  no 
difficulty  in  becoming,  say,  a  police  commissioner,  and 
in  keeping  his  cellar  perpetually  well  stocked  with 
red  wine. 

This  much  had,  at  any  rate,  become  certain.  There 
was  a  country  somewhere  beyond  seas  where  a  man  was 
a  man  in  spite  of  his  religion  and  his  origin.  If  Couza's 
career  and  transformation  proved  anything,  they  proved 
that  in  America  a  human  being  was  given  a  chance  to 
live  his  life  without  interference,  to  become  rich  and 
influential  if  he  could,  and  to  develop  whatever  talents 
were  in  him  to  the  best  advantage.  Even  if  the 
informer  were  right,  and  Couza  were  a  sham,  America 
surely  was  no  sham,  and  the  message  that  Couza  had 
conveyed  to  us  was  honest.  Anyhow,  no  one  from 
Rumania  could  go  to  America  and  do  the  things  that 
Couza  had  done  in  Vaslui.  No,  it  did  no  good  for 
Itza  Baer  and  his  mournful  followers  to  go  around 

24 


THE    GOSPEL   OF    NEW    YORK 

howling  that  Couza  was  an  impostor,  that  New  York 
was  not  at  all  what  he  had  cracked  it  up  to  be,  and  that 
we  would  find  life  so  hard  and  so  sordid  there  that  we 
would  walk  back.  We  let  them  talk,  and  proceeded  in 
feverish  haste  to  put  our  enthusiasm  into  acts. 

Now  I  must  confess  that  I  have  a  very  grave  doubt 
as  to  whether  it  had  been  a  part  of  Couza's  original 
plan  to  effect  anything  like  an  exodus  from  his  native 
land  to  that  of  his  adoption.  Those  who  censure  and 
traduce  him  have  said  so;  but  then  so  have  they  said 
a  lot  of  other  slanderous,  contradictory  things  about 
him.  Perhaps  I  am  wrong;  but  really  I  do  question 
it.  Surely  it  was  not  his  fault  that  my  fellow-townsmen 
were  so  literal  and  so  simple.  Let  us  remember  that 
he  was  cautious  to  the  point  of  taciturnity  about  his 
own  achievements  and  accomplishments,  particularly 
when  he  perceived  the  drift  of  the  impression  he  was 
making.  A  less  noble  character  than  he  could  not  have 
resisted  the  temptation  of  bragging  about  his  own 
wealth  and  influence  as  he  resisted  it. 

And  let  us  further  remember  that  it  was  no  voluntary 
misrepresentation  on  his  part  when  in  a  moment  of 
metaphorical  excitement  he  let  it  be  known  that  he  was 
an  envoy  of  the  American  Government  in  Paris;  that 
the  statement  was  forced  upon  him  by  my  fellow- 
townsmen;  and  that  in  the  deepest  spiritual  sense  it 
was  not  a  misrepresentation  at  all.  The  truth  is  that 
he  was  but  a  member  of  the  great  American  democracy 
on  a  lark.  When  I  got  to  New  York  the  next  year  I 


25 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

found  him  inhabiting  the  fraction  of  a  flat  on  Attorney 
Street,  the  remainder  of  which  constituted  a  thriving 
dressmaking  establishment.  Mrs.  Couza  was  making 
the  dresses,  and  paying  the  rent,  and  otherwise  attend 
ing  to  the  material  side  of  life,  while  Couza  himself  was 
keeping  more  or  less  busy  as  a  foreman  in  a  bed-spring 
factory,  and  saving  enough  from  his  earnings  to  get 
another  frock-coat  very  soon. 

In  a  merely  literal  sense,  therefore,  it  may  be  said 
that  he  had,  after  all,  not  been  an  envoy.  But  he  had 
been  something  nobler  than  that;  he  had  caught  a 
glorious  vision  of  America  where  any  man  might  be  a 
millionaire,  an  ambassador,  or  a  President — what  did 
it  amount  to  that  he,  as  a  matter  of  crude  fact,  was 
not? — and  he  had  traveled  all  the  way  to  Vaslui  to 
share  his  vision  with  us. 


THE    EXODUS 


WITHIN  three  months  after  Couza's  departure 
the  America-fever  had  spread  to  the  confines  of 
the  kingdom.  The  contagion  arose  simultaneously  in 
Vaslui  and  Berlad,  and  stalked  with  the  pace  of  lightning, 
northward  through  Jassy  to  far  Dorohoi  on  the  Russian 
frontier,  south  and  westward  through  the  Danube 
cities  of  Galatz,  Braila  and  Turnu-Severin  to  the  very 
doors  of  the  royal  palace  in  Bucharest,  until  scarcely  a 
hamlet  was  left  untouched  by  its  ravages.  During  the 
early  spring  Vaslui  had  the  appearance  of  a  town  struck 
by  war  or  revolution.  By  the  merciful  justice  of 
Providence  it  befell  that  the  rich  and  the  grasping  were 
among  the  earliest  victims.  Forest-owners  and  land 
magnates  got  rid  of  their  holdings,  students  abandoned 
their  books,  reputable  merchants  took  the  habit  of 
bankruptcy  and  made  off  with  their  creditors'  funds  to 
the  nearest  foreign  port.  Houses  were  sold  at  such 
sacrifice  that  the  value  of  real  estate  dropped  to  one- 
fourth  its  customary  level,  and  a  time  soon  arrived  when 
no  one  could  be  induced  to  buy  a  home  or  a  farm  at  any 
price.  Household  furniture  was  consumed  as  fire- 

27 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

wood;  personal  property,  including  kitchen  utensils, 
cradles,  prayer-books,  and  even  clothing,  were  given 
away  in  such  quantities  that  shops  and  manufactories 
had  to  close  their  doors.  Trade  was  completely  at  a 
standstill.  The  streets  witnessed  a  continual  procession 
of  trays  and  carts  bulging  with  comically  shaped  bales 
of  feather-bedding,  because  rumor  had  it  that  the  com 
modity  was  unobtainable  in  America.  The  railway 
station  had  never  been  so  crowded  before.  There  were 
cheerful  farewells,  and  those  who  stayed  behind  cried 
to  those  who  departed,  "I'll  see  you  in  Nev-York 
soon."  And  what  took  place  in  Vaslui  was  only  typical 
of  what  had  come  to  be  the  state  of  affairs  everywhere 
in  Rumania. 

I  am  certain  that  in  any  other  country  such  a  general 
exodus,  bringing  the  serious  consequences  in  its  wake 
that  this  did,  would  have  been  stopped  by  the  police. 
Was  not  the  thing  assuming  the  character  of  a  national 
disaster?  But  the  Government  of  Rumania  was  far 
from  any  thought  of  interference.  It  stood  by  idly 
while  the  caravans  kept  moving  on,  apparently  only  too 
happy  to  be  rid  of  an  element  of  its  population  for  which 
it  had  always  entertained  a  quite  frank  antipathy.  In 
fact,  it  did  the  reverse  of  stopping  it.  Ordinarily  the 
getting  of  a  passport  had  been  a  matter  of  endless 
trouble  and  very  considerable  expense.  But  in  this 
Messianic  year  1900  the  bars  were  unaccountably  let 
down,  and  every  person  not  of  military  age  who  made 
application  for  a  passport  was  cheerfully  sped  on  his 

28 


THE    EXODUS 

way  by  the  officials  and  granted  the  document  with  the 
minimum  of  cost  and  almost  no  trouble  at  all. 

As  the  movement  advanced  from  one  astonishing 
stage  to  another  our  information  about  America  kept 
growing  vaster  and  vaster,  until  the  few  seeds  of 
knowledge  that  Couza  had  scattered  among  us  seemed 
like  a  primer  beside  an  encyclopaedia.  This  remarkable 
country,  so  newly  discovered  for  us,  was  infinitely  more 
wonderful  than  it  had  appeared  from  first  reports,  and 
infinitely  more  puzzling.  To  be  sure,  Couza  had  made 
some  passing  allusion  to  a  President,  but  it  had  never 
dawned  on  us  at  the  time  that  this  official  was  the  ruler 
of  the  land.  Surely  no  government  had  ever  been 
known  to  dispense  with  the  guidance  of  hereditary 
kings.  Countries,  no  matter  whether  they  did  call 
themselves  republics,  were,  after  all,  not  charity 
societies  to  be  managed  by  mere  presidents.  No 
wonder  it  was  said  that  the  Government  of  America 
was  powerless  to  prevent  troublesome  persons  from 
carping  and  poking  fun  at  it,  that  newspapers  had  free 
rein  to  plot  its  overthrow,  and  that  the  ruler's  position 
was  so  insecure  that  he  never  knew  just  when  his 
enemies  might  supplant  him.  The  geography  of  the 
place  was  even  more  surprising,  since  by  all  accounts 
New  York  stood  exactly  beneath  Vaslui,  "on  the  under 
side  of  the  earth,"  and  that  would  seem  to  mean  that 
the  inhabitants  walked  head  downward  like  flies  on  the 
ceiling.  It  was  regrettable  that  we  had  learned  this 
only  after  Couza  had  gone,  or  we  might  have  asked  him 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

to  explain  how  it  was  managed.  We  might  also  have 
been  told  in  an  authoritative  way  whether  it  was  true 
that  in  New  York  the  railways  ran  over  the  roofs  of 
houses,  that  the  dwellings  were  so  large  that  one  of 
them  was  sufficient  to  house  an  entire  town  in  Rumania, 
that  all  the  food  was  sold  in  sealed  metal  packages,  that 
the  water  came  up  into  people's  homes  without  having 
to  be  carried,  and  that  no  one,  not  even  a  shoemaker, 
went  to  the  temple  on  Saturdays  without  wearing  a 
stovepipe  hat. 

By  the  end  of  April  the  greater  part  of  the.  town's 
men  of  means  and  distinction  had  rolled  away  in 
carriage  and  railway  car  and  steamboat,  and  the  great 
problem  of  emigration  gradually  loomed  up  in  all  its 
enormity.  How  were  the  rank  and  file  of  the  com 
munity — the  small  grain-merchants,  the  poor  shop 
keepers,  the  hundred  varieties  of  go-between,  all  of 
whom  lived  on  the  peasant  and  depended  on  the  brief 
harvest  season  for  their  whole  year's  income — how  were 
they  to  make  their  way  to  New  York?  The  most 
conservative  estimate  showed  that  two  hundred  francs 
would  barely  pay  the  passage  of  a  single  person;  and 
families  in  Vaslui  were  of  the  traditional,  respectable 
type,  consisting  usually  of  father  and  mother  and  an 
average  of  five  descendants,  not  to  mention  such  odd 
members,  commonly  appended  to  all  households,  as 
grandfathers,  invalid  aunts,  orphaned  second  cousins, 
and  the  like.  To  fit  out  and  transport  such  a  party  in 
its  entirety  would  require  a  fortune  as  incalculable  as 

30 


THE    EXODUS 

everything  else  connected  with  America  was.  Now, 
who  among  this  great  middle  class  was  in  a  position,  at 
the  tapering  end  of  the  year,  to  produce  anything  like 
such  a  fortune  all  at  once?  Supposing  even  that  one 
was  content  to  let  a  mere  representative  of  the  tribe 
go  forth  to  blaze  the  trail,  and  that  the  remaining  ones 
could  summon  up  the  patience  to  wait  until  he  had 
wrung  enough  out  of  New  York's  fabulous  millions  to 
send  for  them,  where  was  his  equipment  to  come  from? 
Now  that  the  moneyed  class  had  gone,  it  was  not  even 
possible  to  sell  or  pawn  the  family  heirlooms.  The  rare 
few  who  still  had  a  bit  of  ready  cash  clung  to  it  with  a 
tenacity  amazing  even  for  Vaslui.  So  my  native  town, 
harassed  and  floundering,  scratched  its  head  and 
pondered  its  tremendous  problem  until  it  solved  it — or 
I  should  say,  until  it  would  have  solved  it  if  relatives  in 
America  had  been  what  they  ought  to  be. 

Who  the  clear-headed  realist  that  hit  upon  so  simple 
a  way  out  of  our  difficulties  was  I  cannot  now  recall,  if 
indeed  I  ever  knew.  I  rather  incline  to  the  theory  that 
there  was  no  such  person — that,  like  all  beneficial 
discoveries  bringing  relief  to  suffering  mankind,  the 
solution  was  arrived  at  by  all  of  us  at  the  same  time, 
distilled,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  charged  air.  At  any 
rate,  and  however  that  may  be,  it  seemed  as  if  all  at 
once  every  one  in  Vaslui  suddenly  remembered  the 
obvious  fact  that  Couza  was  not  the  only  one  of  our 
fellow-countrymen  to  have  gone  to  America.  Why, 

there  was  hardly  a  family  in  town  that  had  not  a  kins- 
si 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

man  of  one  degree  or  another  in  that  land  of  millionaires. 
It  did  not  matter  now  what  the  disgraceful  circumstance 
had  been  that  had  driven  him  there,  and  it  was  alto 
gether  beside  the  point  that  he  had  hitherto  been  an 
outcast  from  our  respectable  hearts  and  our  respectable 
world.  Our  views  had  broadened;  we  had  come  to 
regard  America  in  a  more  charitable  light,  of  late. 
Thank  Heaven  for  providing  us  with  a  refuge  in  our 
extremity!  And  so  there  followed  an  eager  searching 
of  our  memories  for  exact  names  and  more  or  less  definite 
addresses,  and  an  immediate  despatching  of  lengthy, 
affectionate  communications  to  beloved  uncles  and  very 
dear  cousins  and  most  precious  nephews,  with  introduc 
tory  "why  haven't  we  been  honored  with  news  of  your 
valued  health  all  these  years"  and  salutatory  "times  are 
hard  here;  won't  you  send  us  a  ticket  and  a  few  dollars 
for  our  Yankel  or  Moishe,  who  is  now  a  fine  big  boy, 
and  you  ought  to  see  him."  Unhappily,  the  endeared 
ones  who  were  addressed  somewhere  in.  America  had 
either  migrated  somewhere  else,  or  were  dead  or  had 
become  hardened  by  excessive  wealth;  for  very  few 
answers  came  back  and  those  few  of  the  most  dis 
couraging  sort.  Times  were  equally  hard  in  America, 
they  invariably  said,  the  country  had  just  been  at  war, 
work  was  scarce,  and  they  would  therefore  advise  us 
to  remain  where  life  was  simpler,  easier,  and  freer.  No 
doubt,  they  expected  us  to  believe  all  this.  But  we 
quite  readily  perceived  their  motive — they  feared  our 
competition;  America  was  so  good  that  they  wanted 

32 


THE    EXODUS 

her  all  to  themselves.  Ah,  well,  we  had  Couza's  word 
and  example  for  the  truth  about  New  York.  Nothing 
that  these  selfish  ingrates,  whom  prosperity  had 
rendered  unsympathetic  to  their  own  kin,  might  tell  us 
could  move  us  from  our  resolve.  And  then  just  as 
everything  began  to  look  once  more  as  black  as  possible 
and  the  great  problem  bade  fair  to  remain  as  unsolved 
as  ever,  help  appeared  from  the  least  expected  quarter. 
The  youth — the  fantastic,  impractical  youth — seeing 
the  muddle  their  elders  were  in,  took  matters  into  their 
own  hands,  and  one  fine  morning  Rumania  awoke  to 
hear  the  startling  news  that  the  Walking  Movement 
had  begun. 


IV 

TO   AMERICA   ON   FOOT 

IT  must  have  been  along  toward  the  middle  of  May 
that  the  intelligence  reached  Vaslui  of  the  strange 
new  turn  that  the  emigration  craze  had  taken;  and  while 
I  am  about  it  I  shall  let  no  amount  of  civic  pride  prevent 
me  from  recording  that  it  was  out  of  the  neighboring 
and  rival  town  of  Berlad  that  salvation  came.  It  was 
to  the  effect  that  a  band  of  young  men  had  formed 
themselves  into  an  organization  for  the  purpose  of 
walking  to  America.  I  remember  how  incredulous  we 
were  when  we  first  heard  of  it.  In  the  first  place,  we 
had  learned  entirely  too  much  about  America  during 
and  since  Couza's  visit  to  swallow  any  such  absurd 
notion  as  that  it  could  be  reached  by  walking.  And 
besides  that,  the  report  was  brought  to  us  by  a  woman 
whom  Vaslui  credited  with  neither  too  much  truthful 
ness  nor  complete  sanity.  The  person  was  a  neighbor 
of  ours,  whose  husband  had  served  a  term  at  the  prison 
of  Dobrovetz,  justly  or  unjustly,  for  arson,  and  she  had 
built  up  a  trade  in  convict's  work  in  beads  and  leather. 
She  used  to  travel  about  to  all  the  fairs,  and  often 
returned  with  a  great  assortment  of  wild  tales.  We 

34 


TO   AMERICA    ON    FOOT 

little  dreamed  that  before  many  weeks  we  were  to  have 
a  To-America-on-Foot  Society  in  our  own  town. 

Yet  that  is  precisely  what  happened.  We  had  hardly 
had  time  to  make  up  our  minds  as  to  whether  there 
could  be  anything  in  the  strange  story  from  Berlad, 
when  a  number  of  the  boys  in  our  own  set  held  a  meeting 
and  announced  that  they  had  formed  a  walking  group 
right  in  Vaslui.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  immodest,  but 
historical  truth  demands  I  should  confess  that  I  had 
the  glory  of  being  present  at  that  meeting  and  becoming 
one  of  the  charter  members  of  the  organization.  We 
assembled,  about  twenty-five  of  us  in  all,  in  Monish 
Bachman's  grain-shed  just  outside  the  town  gate.  The 
place  was  well  chosen,  for  that  shed  had  already  be 
come  sacred  in  our  hearts  by  many  tender  associations. 
It  had  been  the  scene  of  a  long  series  of  theatrical 
performances  in  which  the  present  organizers  had  been 
both  actors  and  audience.  And  although  we  were  now 
practical  men  and  quite  done  with  childish  things,  our 
instincts  must  have  guided  us  in  selecting  this  senti 
mental  spot  for  our  adult  activities.  We  ranged  in  age 
from  fifteen  to  eighteen,  with  the  exception  of  young 
Frankel,  the  druggist's  son,  who,  having  spent  a  year  at 
the  university  of  Bucharest,  was  looked  up  to  as  a  man 
of  the  world,  and  was,  therefore,  asked  to  give  us  the 
benefit  of  his  parliamentary  training. 

The  meeting  was  a  thunderous  one.  As  in  all 
parliaments,  the  body,  which  had  gathered  as  a  very 
harmonious  one,  soon  split  up  into  a  number  of  factions. 

35 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

There  was  the  extreme  left,  which  advocated  secret 
procedure  and  the  exclusion  of  parents  from  our 
councils.  They  were  in  favor  of  immediate  action,  a 
nocturnal  departure  with  French  leave,  and  not  a  word 
to  our  families  until  we  had  reached  New  York,  when  a 
telegram  would  suffice  to  inform  them  of  what  had 
happened.  That  plan  had  in  its  favor  the  element  of 
romance.  But  it  was  forthwith  howled  down  by  the 
extreme  right,  the  reactionaries,  who  laughed  at  the 
whole  scheme  and  declared  that  if  we  could  not  travel 
like  gentlemen  we  might  as  well  abandon  the  idea  of 
America  entirely.  Finally  the  moderates  won  out. 
Led  by  the  chairman  himself,  they  argued  that  it  would 
be  wiser  to  take  the  townspeople  into  our  secret,  and 
gain  the  benefit  of  their  advice  and  support. 

Before  adjourning,  we  took  up,  at  Frankel's  sugges 
tion,  the  matter  of  permanent  organization.  We 
elected  a  president  and  invested  him  with  tyrannical 
powers  over  our  bodies  and  souls.  He  was  to  preside 
at  the  meetings  while  we  remained  in  Vaslui,  and  to 
act  as  the  captain  of  the  band  on  the  march.  He  could 
dismiss  a  member  from  the  group  for  a  capital  offense,  or 
punish  him  with  reduced  rations  and  solitary  marching 
forty  meters  behind  the  column  for  minor  misde 
meanors.  A  number  of  us  objected  to  making  the 
captain  into  a  king,  pointing  out  the  patent  fact  that 
he  was  called  a  president,  and  crying  vehemently  that 
this  granting  of  wholesale  privileges  to  a  president  was 
totally  out  of  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  great 

36 


TO   AMERICA    ON    FOOT 

country  to  which  we  were  going.  Next  we  turned  to 
the  choosing  of  a  treasurer,  and  experienced  tremendous 
difficulties  in  deciding  what  one  of  us  could  most  safely 
be  intrusted  with  our  prospective  common  funds. 
Then  the  temporary  chairman  suggested  that  we  ought 
to  have  a  secretary,  "just  for  the  dignity  of  the  organiza 
tion,"  even  though  we  may  find  no  duties  for  him. 
Last  of  all,  I  was  myself  picked  for  the  post  of  commis 
sary-general,  with  powers  to  purchase  supplies  and 
apportion  the  rations — always,  of  course,  under  orders 
from  the  president  and  captain. 

But,  alas !  the  irony  of  fate  and  the  cruelty  of  parents ! 
No  sooner  had  we  each  retired  to  our  own  homes,  and 
no  sooner  did  we  break  the  news  to  our  several  fathers, 
than  we  found  good  reason  to  repent  of  our  failure  to 
adopt  the  program  of  the  leftists.  The  ingrate  Monish 
Bachman,  unmindful  of  the  glory  that  had  fallen  upon 
his  grain-shed,  promptly  deposed  the  powerful  tyrant, 
who  was  his  own  son  Yankel.  Neither  he  nor  my 
parent  would  hear  of  the  "absurd"  idea.  Monish, 
having  once  been  wealthy,  and  being  still  very  proud 
and  something  of  a  power  in  the  community,  could  see 
no  reason  why  his  son  should  undergo  the  hardship 
and  the  indignity  of  having  to  tramp  to  America.  "If 
Yankel  must  go  away,"  he  declared,  with  a  flourish, 
"I  am  not  yet  so  poor  but  that  I  could  afford  to  have 
him  travel  as  befits  my  position."  But  Yankel  need 
not  leave  home  at  all,  he  insisted.  The  youngster  was 
very  useful  to  him  in  his  business.  In  vain  did  the  boy 

37 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

object  that  he  cared  nothing  about  dignity  and  position, 
that  he  thought  the  railway  and  steamboat  were  tire 
some,  uninteresting,  grandfatherly  modes  of  travel, 
unworthy  of  a  boy.  Monish  had  put  his  foot  down. 

With  me  things  went  quite  as  badly,  if  not  worse. 
My  father  was  a  cleverer  man  than  YankeFs,  and 
therefore  he  had  no  difficulty  in  trumping  up  a  whole 
chain  of  causes  why  he  could  not  let  me  go.  Number 
one:  had  I  forgotten  that  no  more  than  a  week  before, 
while  I  was  bathing  the  horse  down  at  the  swimming- 
hole,  I  had  very  narrowly  escaped  drowning,  and  a 
whipping  afterward  into  the  bargain?  With  that 
exhibition  of  my  incapacity  still  fresh  in  his  memory, 
how  could  I  expect  him  to  trust  me  to  take  care  of 
myself  on  such  a  journey  and  in  a  distant  country? 
Number  two:  I  was  the  youngest  in  the  family,  and 
probably  for  that  reason  mother's  favorite  child- 
he  was  not  talking  about  himself  now.  Paul  was  in  the 
army  at  Hushi,  and  Harry  was  in  business  at  Con- 
stantza.  Was  I  cruel  enough  to  go  away  and  leave 
mother  to  die  of  longing?  Number  three:  The  crops 
last  fall  had  failed;  times  were  woefully  hard;  there 
was  not  money  enough  in  the  house  to  fit  me  out  for 
any  kind  of  a  journey,  however  inexpensive. 

All  this  array  of  logic  I  might  have  met,  but  before 
long  father's  arguments  were  reinforced  by  mother's 
pleadings.  Had  I  forgotten  Annie,  my  only  sister,  who 
had  died  but  three  years  before,  a  flower  struck  down  in 
the  midst  of  spring?  How  could  I  think  of  abandoning 

38 


TO    AMERICA    ON    FOOT 

father  and  mother  in  their  sorrow  and  quit  the  precious 
soil  where  Annie  lay  buried?  Against  the  logic  of 
bereavement,  I  saw,  I  had  no  hope  of  prevailing.  Even 
though  my  reason  did  not  yield,  my  heart  did,  and  the 
session  ended  in  tears. 

In  the  mean  time  Vaslui  generally  showed  a  very 
different  disposition  toward  the  new  emigration.  In 
spite  of  its  deposed  president  and  commissary-general, 
the  group  had  managed  to  grow  both  in  numbers  and 
in  public  approval.  It  had  been  joined  by  several 
older  men,  so  that  the  roster  contained,  by  now,  some 
forty-odd  names.  The  organization  held  daily  meet 
ings — no  longer  in  the  grain-shed,  but  in  one  of  the 
town  halls — the  preparations  for  the  journey  were  being 
rushed  and  enthusiasm  ran  very  high,  not  only  among 
the  members  themselves,  but  especially  in  the  com 
munity.  If  the  earlier  emigration  had  aroused  interest, 
this  new  and  strange  development  had  in  it  the  pictu- 
resqueness  andthe  heroic  pathos  which  could  not  but 
appeal  to  the  imagination  and  touch  the  heart.  The 
majority  of  those  who  composed  the  reorganized  group 
were  preparing  to  walk  to  America  out  of  real  necessity, 
not  for  adventure.  Vaslui  gave  them  the  homage  and 
the  sympathy  that  a  nation  gives  its  army  marching 
off  to  war. 

The  most  striking  evidence  of  the  community's 
interest  in  the  movement  appeared  right  at  the  start. 
Before  matters  had  proceeded  very  far  a  few  prominent 
citizens  of  the  town  undertook  to  guide  the  destinies  of 

4  39 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

the  group  in  a  more  systematic  fashion.  They  per 
petuated  the  old  committee  which  had  been  chosen  to 
welcome  the  man  Couza,  whose  missionary  zeal  had 
started  the  whole  migration.  The  purposes  of  this 
higher  organization  were  at  first  purely  decorative.  It 
made  arrangements  to  give  the  group  a  suitable  send- 
off  on  its  departure,  with  flags  and  speeches  and  the 
like;  and  it  instituted  preparations  for  the  welcoming 
of  such  groups  from  other  towns  as  might  happen  to 
pass  through  Vaslui  on  their  way  to  New  York.  But 
once  the  committee  had  been  formed  it  found  a  multi 
tude  of  unforeseen  avenues  for  its  activity.  It  was 
discovered,  in  .the  first  place,  that  such  funds  as  had 
been  gathered  from  the  contributions  of  the  members 
themselves  were  absurdly  inadequate  to  the  needs  of 
the  journey.  Furthermore,  it  was  out  of  the  question 
for  the  boys  to  camp  out  or  stop  at  hotels  in  the  towns 
where  the  night  might  overtake  them.  The  most 
serious  problem  of  all  arose  over  the  question  of  how  the 
young  people  were  to  be  cared  for  in  the  foreign  coun 
tries  through  which  they  must  journey. 

Thus  there  came  into  being  a  whole  succession  of 
institutions  which  the  original  organizers  of  the  walking 
movement  had  not  even  dreamed  of.  The  home  com 
mittee  of  Vaslui  was  soon  duplicated  in  every  town 
where  groups  were  forming,  and  before  long  these 
separate  bodies  became  merged  into  a  really  formidable 
national  committee,  with  branches  in  every  corner  of 
Rumania  and  activities  that  covered  every  possible 

40 


TO   AMERICA   ON    FOOT 

need  of  the  emigrants.  And  then  the  process  of  organ 
ization  was  carried  to  the  last  climactic  step  when  the 
newly  born  national  committee  entered  into  corre 
spondence  and  ultimately  became  affiliated  with  the 
great  charitable  alliances  of  Vienna,  Berlin,  Paris,  and 
London.  So  that  the  marching  group  which  had 
started  out  as  an  almost  grotesque,  childish  fancy  of 
merely  local  scope,  had  in  a  short  time  evolved  into  a 
world  movement,  with  agencies  in  the  principal  capitals 
of  Europe  and  even  in  New  York  itself. 

By  far  the  most  noteworthy  by-product  of  this 
amazing  movement  was  the  advent  of  the  newspaper. 
Hitherto  Vaslui  had  been  content  to  get  its  news  second 
hand.  Journalism  was  a  thing  unknown,  not  only  in 
Vaslui,  but  in  all  the  other  cities  of  Rumania  except 
Bucharest.  There  may  have  been  newspapers  in  Jassy, 
but  I  never  heard  of  them.  Even  the  Bucharest 
dailies  were  taken  only  by  the  coffee-houses  of  Vaslui, 
where  they  hung  on  racks  clamped  into  their  holders, 
and  were  glanced  at  sporadically  by  the  merchants  who 
congregated  there.  But  all  this  was  now  changed.  In 
the  last  month  or  two  Vaslui  and  Rumania  generally 
had  passed  through  a  cycle  of  changes  the  like  of  which 
had  taken,  elsewhere,  centuries  to  effect.  The  mere 
thought  of  New  York  had  somehow  in  a  moment  of 
time  raised  us  to  the  level  of  Western  civilization. 

I  have  often  heard  it  said  since,  in  school  and  college, 
that  the  genuine  art  and  literature  of  a  people  are  the 
direct  result  of  its  history  and  invariably  reflect  the 

41 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE   MAKING 

popular  soul.  If  this  be  true,  I  have  myself  been 
present  at  the  birth  of  a  little  movement  which  may — 
who  can  tell? — prove  a  real  contribution  to  the  develop 
ment  of  a  genuine  national  art.  For  these  daily  and 
weekly  papers  that  arose  so  suddenly  among  us  were 
no  mere  purveyors  of  the  world's  daily  scandal.  They 
were  essentially  of  the  stuff  of  which  literature  is  made, 
although  I  dare  say  they  never  found  their  way  into 
books  or  libraries.  They  were  filled  with  poems  and 
passionate  eloquence,  words  of  cheer  and  hope,  eulogies 
of  the  land  of  our  aspirations,  which  for  some  reason  or 
other  was  continually  referred  to  as  Jerusalem,  en 
couragement  to  those  who  were  left  behind,  and  praise 
to  the  Almighty  for  delivering  his  people  from  the 
bondage  of  the  modern  Egypt  (Rumania).  Nearly  all 
the  contents  were  the  work  of  the  members  of  the  groups 
themselves.  And  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  our 
humble,  simple  people  had  found  an  interest  in  jour 
nalistic  endeavor.  They  eagerly  devoured  every  issue 
from  the  first  word  to  the  last. 

The  ancient  arts  of  music  and  oratory  likewise  came 
in  for  their  share.  We  had  never  dreamed  of  the  pro 
fusion  of  talent  that  lay  fallow  in  our  own  midst. 
Moritz  Cahana,  the  owner  of  the  Hotel  Regal,  acquired 
a  reputation  overnight  for  impassioned  public  utterance 
which  reached  far  out  of  Vaslui  and  extended  even 
beyond  the  frontiers  of  Rumania.  All  the  meetings  of 
the  group  consisted  in  large  part  of  songs,  with  Hebrew, 
Yiddish,  and  Rumanian  words,  whose  airs  were  adapta- 

42 


TO  AMERICA   ON   FOOT 

tions  of  ancient  melodies — tender  lullabies,  melancholy 
yearnings  for  Zion,  and  solemn  chants  of  the  synagogue. 
Some  had  been  borrowed  from  the  doinas  of  the  shep 
herd,  and  others  had  filtered  in,  after  many  vicissitudes, 
from  the  cafes  chantants  of  Vienna.  The  martial  airs 
were  quite  recognizable  plagiarisms  from  the  milita 
ry  composers.  But  all  of  the  compositions  had  been 
blazoned  with  the  heroic  spirit  of  the  young  men  who 
sang  them  and  the  fervid  enthusiasm  of  the  times. 

In  this  immense  burst  of  literary  and  artistic  fire  the 
practical  side  of  the  undertaking  was,  I  am  afraid, 
somewhat  neglected.  I  attended  the  majority  of  the 
meetings,  but  I  cannot  recall  ever  having  seen  a  map  at 
any  of  them.  In  fact,  I  am  pretty  certain  that  not 
even  the  captain  of  the  expedition  had  the  faintest 
glimmer  of  a  notion  about  routes.  It  was  the  broad, 
magnificent  idea  of  the  thing  that  occupied  all  minds. 
No  one  seemed  to  be  in  the  least  interested  in  mere 
details.  As  far  as  I  can  now  determine,  there  was  not 
a  member  in  the  whole  group  who  could  tell  just  which 
way  he  was  headed,  except  that  the  initial  stop  was  to 
be  Berlad — some  forty  miles  away — and  the  ultimate 
destination,  New  York.  It  was  never  made  clear  in 
the  speeches  or  the  newspapers  how  the  Atlantic  was  to 
be  inveigled  into  suffering  the  foot- voyagers  to  bridge 
its  chasm.  Only  once  had  there  been  an  allusion  in 
biblical  phrase  to  the  cleaving  of  the  sea  and  the  rising 
of  its  waters  like  a  wall,  but  as  that  came  out  in  a  poem 
it  was  not  remarked. 

43 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

It  was  early  in  May  that  this  first  group,  having 
completed  its  preparations,  set  out  on  its  strange 
adventure.  The  day  was  a  clear  and  balmy  one.  The 
marchers  assembled  at  the  gate  of  the  little  circular 
park  in  the  center  of  the  town,  and  from  the  earliest 
hour  of  the  morning  vast  throngs  of  people  came  out  to 
greet  them.  Promptly  at  ten  o'clock  the  bugle  sounded 
and  the  procession  began.  It  was  headed  by  Moritz 
Cahana,  the  orator  of  the  occasion,  and  some  other 
members  of  the  committee  in  a  droshka.  Then 
followed  the  group  in  double  file,  clad  in  brown  khaki, 
military  leggings,  and  broad-brimmed  canvas  hats,  each 
with  an  army  knapsack  on  his  back  and  a  water-bottle 
slung  jauntily  over  his  shoulder.  Last  in  order  came 
well-nigh  all  that  remained  of  the  community  of  Vaslui. 
We  marched  and  sang  through  the  main  thoroughfare, 
and  then  we  swung  off  to  a  by-road  that  led  to  the 
southern  gate  of  the  town.  There  we  halted,  and 
Moritz  Cahana  made  a  speech  that  caused  the  whole 
throng  to  cheer  and  brought  a  lump  into  my  throat  and 
the  tears  into  my  eyes.  Finally  came  the  long  last 
farewells,  with  tears  and  sobs  from  other  people  besides 
myself.  The  bugle  sounded  again,  the  captain  gave 
the  command,  and  the  column  was  off  on  its  way. 

I  have  sometimes  debated  with  myself  whether  it  was 
really  the  enthusiasm  for  America  and  the  vague  yet 
marvelous  things  she  meant  to  me,  or  whether  it  could 
have  been  that  fascinating  uniform  of  my  fortunate 
boy  friends  and  the  romantic  glories  that  I  saw  lying  so 

44 


TO   AMERICA   ON    FOOT 

near  before  them  that  made  my  heart  ache  when  I 
heard  that  bugle  sound  and  beheld  those  feet  lifted  for 
the  march.  Whichever  it  was,  the  sight  of  that  column 
on  its  way,  the  eloquent  words  of  the  speaker,  and  the 
dreary  walk  back  home  have  remained  among  the 
saddest  experiences  of  my  boyhood. 


FAREWELL   FOREVER 

1HAD  given  my  word  that  I  would  not  again  ask  to 
go  with  that  group,  and  I  had  kept  it,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  Monish  Bachman  had  withdrawn  his  objec 
tions  and  allowed  my  friend  Yankel  to  go.  But  when, 
several  days  later,  the  papers  began  to  publish  exciting 
accounts  of  the  progress  of  the  group  I  quite  frankly 
began  to  be  sorry  for  having  been  so  good.  It  made  me 
desperate  to  think  that  here  I  was  condemned  to 
inactivity,  my  hopes  and  my  ambitions  turning  sour 
within  me,  while  the  boys  who  had  been  my  friends  and 
companions  were  plucking  rich  adventure,  seeing  the 
world,  and  daily  drawing  nearer  to  that  magic  city  of 
promise,  New  York.  They  had,  according  to  a  letter 
to  me  from  Yankel,  reached  Berlad;  the  whole  town  had 
turned  out  to  welcome  them,  had  fought  for  the 
privilege  of  entertaining  them  at  their  homes,  and  had 
banqueted  them  for  three  days  as  if  they  had  been 
princes.  From  Berlad  they  had  gone  on  to  Tecuci, 
where  their  reception  had  been  even  more  lavish  than 
in  Berlad.  Can  you  wonder,  after  this  glowing  report, 
that  I  was  getting  restless  and  repenting  of  my  good 
behavior? 

46 


FAREWELL   FOREVER 

Therefore,  when,  toward  the  middle  of  June,  the 
second  Vaslui  group  was  organized,  I  returned  to  my 
attack  on  father.  I  threatened  to  run  away  and  join 
the  group  at  the  next  town.  I  reminded  my  parent  of 
his  ambitions  for  me,  and  asked  him,  after  all  the  rebuffs 
his  efforts  had  met,  whether  he  could  still  hope  to  make 
anything  of  me  in  Vaslui.  Just  what  did  he  expect  to 
turn  me  into?  I  painted  a  gloomy  picture  of  our  life 
in  Rumania — the  poverty,  the  absence  of  every  variety 
of  opportunity,  the  discriminations  of  the  Government 
against  us.  Whichever  way  one  turned  there  were 
prohibitions  and  repressions.  Supposing  I  wanted  to 
study  law,  then  "aliens"  were  not  eligible  to  the  bar. 
The  ministry?  Rumania  forbade  the  establishment  of 
rabbinical  seminaries.  Well,  I  could  go  in  for  medicine, 
if  only  the  Government  allowed  him  to  earn  the  means 
of  seeing  me  through.  But  justice  had  taken  precious 
care  that  he  should  not.  When  he  had  engaged  in 
storekeeping  in  the  country  and  had,  by  hard  toil, 
succeeded  in  making  a  comfortable  living,  a  new  law 
had  legislated  him  and  all  his  kind  back  into  the  towns. 
Later  on,  when  he  had  entered  the  family  occupation  of 
candle-manufacturing,  an  import  tax  on  the  raw 
materials  and  a  heavy  export  tax  on  the  finished  product 
suddenly  rendered  the  trade  unprofitable.  Wine  and 
tobacco  still  brought  tolerable  incomes,  but  he  was  no 
more  permitted  to  deal  in  these  articles  than  I  was  to 
study  and  practise  the  profession  of  the  law.  He  was 
thus  doomed  to  stay  forever  in  the  petty  business  of 

47 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

grain  brokerage,  which,  being  the  only  occupation  open 
to  thousands  of  others,  was  in  a  state  of  such  cutthroat 
competition  that  even  the  most  competent  were  hardly 
able  to  support  their  families  by  it,  let  alone  send  their 
sons  to  the  universities. 

Yes,  it  was  about  time  that  he  should  look  the  stern 
facts  in  the  face  and  abandon  his  lifelong  dream  of  a 
learned  career  for  his  youngest  and  most  studious  son. 
Why,  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  had  abandoned  it.  Hadn't 
I  left  school  more  than  a  year  before  and  gone  into 
trade?  Well,  what  had  I  accomplished?  I  had  tried 
grain  for  six  months  and  had  made  a  total  profit  of 
eighteen  francs  for  the  entire  period — just  about  enough 
to  pay  for  my  salt  and  water.  I  had  been  willing  to 
compromise  with  our  family  traditions  by  condescend 
ing  to  buy  eggs  and  poultry  from  the  peasants  for 
export,  but  he  had  objected  to  that  and  had  reminded 
me  that  I  was  not  brother  Paul,  that  it  was  enough  to 
have  one  boy  in  a  decent  family  fall  below  the  level 
of  his  peers,  and  that  he  would  rather  have  me  idle  the 
rest  of  my  life  than  see  me  hobnob  with  market-women 
and  butchers'  journeymen.  Even  mother's  self-humili 
ation  with  her  well-to-do  brother  Pincus,  of  Berlad,  had 
availed  her  nothing.  I  was  by  no  means  certain  that 
I  would  have  greatly  relished  sweeping  his  dry-goods 
store  and  cleaning  lamps  and  running  errands  for  all 
his  clerks  by  way  of  a  stepping-stone  toward  some  day 
becoming  one  of  his  clerks  myself;  but  thanks  to  my 
newly  acquired  aunt  Rebecca,  I  had  been  spared  the 

48 


FAREWELL    FOREVER 

pains  and  the  shame  of  it,  for  she  had  threatened  Uncle 
Pincus  to  run  away  back  to  her  parents  and  never  come 
back  if  he  started  in  by  filling  the  place  with  his  own 
relatives. 

My  argument  gathered  momentum  as  it  swept  on. 
Knowing  my  audience  as  I  did,  I  turned  next  with 
merciless  emphasis  to  another  subject.  There  was  the 
dreadful  horror  of  the  recruiting  officer  constantly 
lurking  in  our  path  like  a  serpent,  ready  to  spring  on  a 
young  man  just  when  he  had  reached  the  stage  where  he 
could  be  useful  to  himself  and  of  help  to  his  family. 
My  brother  Paul  was  a  case  in  point.  He  had  struggled 
for  years — ever  since  he  had  been  twelve — to  learn  a 
trade;  had  served  a  three-year  apprenticeship  for  his 
mere  bed  and  board;  had  then  toiled  like  a  slave  first 
for  fifty,  then  for  a  hundred  francs  a  year.  And  when 
at  last  he  had  become  master  of  his  calling  and  was 
about  to  become  independent,  along  came  the  scarlet 
monster  and  packed  him  off  to  its  musty  barracks,  to 
be  fed  on  black  bread  and  cabbage,  to  learn  senseless 
tricks  with  his  feet  and  a  gun,  to  spend  days  and  whole 
weeks  in  prison  cells,  as  if  he  were  a  criminal,  to  be 
slapped  in  the  face  like  a  bad  boy,  and  to  live  in  constant 
terror  of  war  and  the  manceuver  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
"If  this  is  the  sort  of  future  you  want  for  me,"  I  con 
cluded,  dramatically,  "you  are  right  in  trying  to  keep 
me  here." 

It  was  cruel,  this  relentless  logic  of  facts.  Mother 
began  to  weep  quietly,  and  father  bit  his  lip  and  turned 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

to  look  out  of  the  window.  But  with  the  single-eyed 
selfishness  of  youth  I  looked  only  to  the  advancement 
of  my  own  cause.  I  perceived  that  my  speech  had  had 
its  effect.  So  I  followed  up  the  argument  with  a 
brilliant  sketch  of  the  great  things  that  were  awaiting 
me  in  New  York.  Had  they  forgotten  the  wonderful 
man  from  New  York  who  had  recently  visited  us?  Had 
they  forgotten  his  jewels,  his  clothes,  his  trunks,  his 
fine,  impressive  appearance,  his  cultured  manners,  his 
official  position?  That  was  what  America  was  making 
out  of  her  men.  For  our  visitor,  by  his  own  confession, 
was  not  the  only  one  who  had  been  so  marvelously 
transformed  in  that  great  country.  Everybody  who 
went  there  became  a  millionaire  overnight,  and  a  doctor 
or  a  teacher  into  the  bargain.  There,  in  America,  was 
my  future  as  well  as  theirs.  For  it  would  take  me  only 
a  few  weeks  to  make  enough  money  to  send  for  the 
whole  family. 

So  at  last  I  conquered.  But  my  victory  turned  out 
to  be  only  a  partial  one.  In  fact,  by  the  time  it  was 
finally  won  the  best  part  of  the  glory  had  been  extracted 
from  it.  Although  father  and  mother  were  both  com 
pletely  won  over,  the  chief  difficulty  still  remained  to 
be  overcome.  When  father  had  previously  told  me 
that  there  was  not  money  enough  in  the  house  to  fit 
me  out  for  the  journey  he  had  touched  on  a  real  obstacle, 
as  I  now  learned.  The  costume  alone  would  cost  about 
fifteen  francs,  the  passport  about  ten  more,  and  I  must 
have  a  few  francs  in  cash.  I  suggested  selling  the  cow, 

50 


FAREWELL    FOREVER 

and  father  consented.  But  by  the  time  that  could 
be  accomplished  the  second  group  had  left  Vaslui,  and 
me  at  home,  a  thoroughly  broken  and  disappointed 
boy. 

Meantime  mother  set  about  with  a  heavy  heart  to 
prepare  for  the  great  day  which  I  looked  forward  to  so 
impatiently  and  which  she  so  horribly  dreaded.  For 
the  next  four  weeks  she  knitted  socks,  and  made  me 
underwear  of  flannelette,  and  sewed  buttons,  and 
mended  my  shirts  and  my  old  overcoat,  which  last, 
however,  I  declined  to  take  with  me.  She  filled  several 
jars  with  jam  for  me  and  one  or  two  with  some  of  her 
far-famed  pickles.  In  the  evening  when  we  were  alone 
together  she  would  make  me  sit  on  her  footstool,  and 
while 'her  deft  fingers  manipulated  the  knitting-needles 
she  would  gaze  into  my  eyes  as  if  she  tried  to  absorb 
enough  of  me  to  last  her  for  the  coming  months  of 
absence.  "You  will  write  us,  dear?"  she  kept  asking 
continually.  "You  won't  forget  your  old  father  and 
mother  when  the  Lord  blesses  you  with  riches.  You 
won't,  will  you?  Promise  me  again,  my  son.  And 
if  I  should  die  when  you  are  gone,  you  will  remember 
me  in  your  prayers,  oh,  my  kadish,  my  male  child." 
Once  or  twice  she  gave  way  to  passionate  sobs:  "I  have 
borne  you,  my  boy,  and  brought  you  into  the  world  in 
pain,  and  I  have  nurtured  you,  and  prayed  over  your 
cradle  in  the  night,  oh,  my  joy  and  my  solace."  At 
such  times  I  tried  to  comfort  her  by  promises  of  daily 
letters,  by  calling  her  silly  for  imagining  dreadful  things, 

51 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

and  by  assuring  her  again  and  again  that  it  was  only  a 
matter  of  a  little  time  before  we  should  be  once  more 
united. 

Throughout  those  days  of  preparation  father  was 
silent  with  that  pregnant  silence  which  he  always  main 
tained  when  his  heart  was  breaking.  Only  on  the  day 
before  my  departure  he  betrayed  himself.  He  had  ap 
parently  been  worrying  all  the  time  about  that  incident 
at  the  swimming-hole,  when  I  had  come  dangerously 
near  drowning,  and  he  had  resolved  that  he  would  im 
press  me  with  the  seriousness  of  it  so  that  I  should 
never  again  imperil  my  life.  On  that  memorable  Satur 
day  night,  therefore,  after  the  beautiful  home  service 
with  its  candles  and  songs  was  over,  he  took  me  around 
to  the  house  of  the  rabbi  and  made  me  take  part  in  a 
scene  which  still  lingers  in  my  memory  as  one  of  the 
most  solemn  experiences  of  my  life.  Even  at  the  time 
I  remember  comparing  it  with  that  impressive  inci 
dent  in  the  Bible  when  Jacob  calls  his  son  Joseph  to 
his  death-bed.  As  we  entered  the  rabbi  arose  and 
shook  hands  with  me.  Then,  still  holding  my  hand  in 
one  of  his,  he  placed  his  other  hand  on  my  head  and 
pronounced  a  blessing  in  Hebrew.  When  he  had 
finished  that  he  asked  me  to  promise  him  by  the  love 
I  bore  my  father  and  mother  that  I  would  never  again 
bathe  in  open  water.  "  That  was  an  omen  from  above," 
he  said.  "The  Lord  of  the  universe  has  spared  you. 
But  you  must  not  tempt  Him  again.  Promise  me  that 
you  will  not.  Be  a  good  son  of  Israel."  Then 

52 


FAREWELL   FOREVER 

he  bade  me  a  cheerful  good-by  and  a  successful  jour 
ney. 

When  at  last  my  preparations  were  completed  the 
last  and  greatest  obstacle  to  my  migration  had  to  be 
faced.  By  this  time  the  second  Vaslui  group  was  ap 
proaching  the  city  of  Galatz  on  the  Danube,  which  is 
about  two  hundred  miles  from  Vaslui.  Father  was 
using  his  influence  as  a  member  of  the  committee  to 
get  me  admitted  into  the  group  at  that  point.  But  the 
leaders  of  the  organization  would  not  hear  of  it.  To 
begin  with,  they  argued,  it  was  against  the  constitution 
and  the  by-laws,  and,  besides,  it  would  set  a  bad  prece 
dent.  Why  should  any  one  care  to  walk  at  all  and 
endure  all  the  hardships  after  this,  if  he  could  come  in 
at  the  last  moment  and  reap  all  the  advantages?  They 
had  wandered  about  over  the  whole  country,  had  once 
or  twice  been  attacked  by  brigands,  and  had  exposed 
themselves  to  sickness  and  every  variety  of  danger. 
And  now,  just  as  their  difficult  journey  was  drawing  to 
an  end,  a  member  of  the  committee  was  trying  to  foist 
a  raw  recruit  upon  them.  But  father  was  determined, 
and  after  endless  dickerings  and  pleadings  and  debat- 
ings  he  won  his  point. 

It  had  developed,  you  see,  that  the  walking  was  not. 
to  be  continued  all  the  way  to  New  York,  after  all. 
The  home  committee — the  general  staff,  as  it  had  come, 
appropriately  enough,  to  be  called — had  apparently  de 
cided  that  at  the  outset.  But  the  captains  and  the 
other  leaders  of  the  groups  themselves  had  found  the 

53 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

tramping  too  jolly — in  spite  of  their  occasional  com 
plaints  to  the  contrary — and  threatened  to  rebel.  Not 
until  they  were  convinced  that  without  the  support  of 
the  committee  they  could  not  march  a  step,  would  they 
listen  to  reason.  So  they  agreed  to  walk  only  as  far  as 
Galatz,  and  there  board  a  Danube  River  steamer  for 
Vienna.  Once  out  of  Rumania,  they  would  be  out  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  national  committee  and  would  be 
taken  charge  of  by  the  Judische  Allianz  zu  Wien.  From 
Vienna  they  would  journey  by  rail  through  Germany  as 
far  as  Rotterdam,  at  the  expense  and  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Verband  der  Deutschen  Juden  and  the  Alliance 
Israelite,  and  from  Rotterdam  they  would  sail  for 
New  York.  That  was  the  route  that  the  group,  and  I 
along  with  them,  actually  followed. 

It  was  not  until  Sunday  morning  that  I  knew 
whether  I  was  going  or  not.  As  soon  as  the  good  word 
reached  me  I  proceeded  to  put  the  finishing  touches  to 
my  packing  and  to  attend  to  the  inevitable  farewells. 
All  that  day  I  went  around  shaking  hands  with  what 
was  left  of  the  community — most  of  them  people  I 
had  never  spoken  to  before — and  every  one  asked  me  to 
deliver  his  regards  to  some  relative  in  New  York,  and 
to  urge  him  to  send  a  steamer  ticket  to  this  one  or  that 
one.  During  the  early  part  of  the  evening  mother  and 
I  walked  up  and  down  in  the  front  yard,  my  hand  in 
hers,  talking  of  the  past  and  the  future,  and  carefully 
avoiding  any  reference  to  the  present.  Just  before 
train-time  she  put  the  gold-clasped  prayer-book  into 

54 


FAREWELL   FOREVER 

my  grip  which  father  had  given  her  on  their  betrothal, 
and  sewed  two  gold  napoleons  into  the  lining  of  my 
waistcoat.  She  seemed  calm  and  resigned.  But  when 
the  train  drew  into  the  station  she  lost  control  of  her 
feelings.  As  she  embraced  me  for  the  last  time  her 
sobs  became  violent  and  father  had  to  separate  us. 
There  was  a  despair  in  her  way  of  clinging  to  me  which 
I  could  not  then  understand.  I  understand  it  now.  I 
never  saw  her  again. 

For  several  hours  I  sat  stark  and  stiff  on  a  wooden 
bench  in  my  railway  carriage,  unaware  of  the  other 
passengers,  mechanically  guarding  with  one  hand  the 
fortune  in  my  waistcoat,  as  father  had  repeatedly 
urged  me  to  do.  I  did  not  even  try  to  collect  my 
thoughts.  I  could  only  see  a  blurred  vision  of  my 
mother  going  home  from  the  station,  and  kept  vaguely 
wondering  whether  America,  with  all  her  prizes,  could 
be  worth  that. 

Toward  morning  my  mind  cleared  and  I  could  see 
things  a  little  more  in  their  true  relations.  As  the 
train  approached  Galatz  I  looked  out  and  beheld  the 
wide  expanse  of  the  Danube  with  the  rosy  hues  of  dawn 
reflected  on  its  placid  surface.  There  were  ships  along 
the  wharves,  both  on  the  Rumanian  and  on  the  Bul 
garian  side.  My  heart  leaped  up  at  the  beautiful  sight. 
I  had  never  seen  a  real  ship  before.  Here  was  the  gate 
of  the  great  world  opening  up  before  me,  with  its  long 
open  roads  radiating  in  all  directions.  It  was  but  an 

earnest  of  the  nobler  destiny  ahead  of  me.    In  a  very 
5  55 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

few  days  I  should  be  out  of  Rumania.  And  then  in 
two  weeks  more  New  York  would  no  longer  be  a  vision, 
but  an  inspiring  reality.  I  could  no  longer  doubt  that 
my  sacrifice  was  worth  while.  And  I  turned  my  face 
to  the  West. 


PART   II 
THE   ALIEN   ABROAD 


VI 

FIRST  IMPRESSIONS 

IT  seems  to  be  assumed  by  the  self-complacent 
native  that  we  immigrants  are  at  once  and  over 
whelmingly  captivated  by  America  and  all  things 
American.  The  mere  sight  of  this  new  world,  he 
fancies,  should  fill  our  hearts  with  the  joy  of  dreams 
realized  and  leave  us  in  a  state  of  surfeited  contentment, 
empty  of  all  further  desire.  Why,  he  would  ask,  if 
the  doubt  were  ever  to  occur  to  him — why  should  we 
not  be  happy?  Have  we  not  left  our  own  country 
because  we  were  in  one  way  or  another  discontented 
there?  And  if  we  have  chosen  America,  it  is  quite 
clear  that  we  must  have  been  attracted  by  what  she 
offered  us  in  substitution.  Besides,  no  man  with  eyes 
could  fail  to  see  right  off  the  superiority  of  this  great 
Republic  to  every  other  country  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Witness  how  the  tide  of  immigration  is  forever  flowing— 
and  always  in  one  direction.  If  the  alien  were  dis 
satisfied  with  America,  would  he  not  be  taking  the  first 
steamer  back  instead  of  inviting  his  friends  and  family 
to  follow  him? 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  logic  and  appearances,  the  truth 

59 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

remains  that  the  immigrant  is  almost  invariably 
disappointed  in  America.  At  any  rate,  of  this  much 
I  am  certain:  I  myself  was  very  bitterly  disappointed 
in  America.  And,  unless  observation  has  been  alto 
gether  astray  with  me,  I  think  I  am  justified  in  the 
generalization  that  nearly  all  other  new-comers  are  at 
least  as  disappointed  as  I  was.  It  was  not  that  this 
land  of  my  aspirations  had  failed  to  come  up  to  my 
dream  of  it,  although  in  a  measure  it  did  fall  short 
there.  Neither  was  my  disillusionment  due  to  the 
dreariness,  the  sordidness,  and  the  drudgery  of  immi 
grant  life,  although  this,  too,  may  have  entered  into 
the  equation.  All  these  things  came  only  later.  I  am 
writing  of  the  first  impact  of  America — or  of  that 
small  fraction  of  it  which  was  America  to  me — of  the 
initial  shock  that  came  to  me  when  I  first  set  foot  on 
American  soil.  And  I  say  that  long  before  I  had  had 
time  to  find  out  what  my  own  fate  would  be  in  this  new 
world,  I  experienced  a  revulsion  of  feeling  of  the  most 
distressful  sort. 

What  were  the  reasons  for  it?  Well,  there  were  a 
variety  of  them :  To  begin  with,  the  alien  who  comes  here 
from  Europe  is  not  the  raw  material  that  Americans  sup 
pose  him  to  be.  He  is  not  a  blank  sheet  to  be  written  on  as 
you  see  fit.  He  has  not  sprung  out  of  nowhere.  Quite  the 
contrary.  He  brings  with  him  a  deep-rooted  tradition, 
a  system  of  culture  and  tastes  and  habits — a  point  of 
view  which  is  as  ancient  as  his  national  experience  and 
which  has  been  engendered  in  him  by  his  race  and  his 


FIRST    IMPRESSIONS 

environment.  And  it  is  this  thing — this  entire  Old  World 
soul  of  his — that  comes  in  conflict  with  America  as  soon  as 
he  has  landed.  Not,  I  beg  you  to  observe,  with  America 
of  the  Americans ;  not ,  at  any  rate ,  immediately .  Of  that 
greater  and  remoter  world  in  which  the  native  resides  we 
immigrants  are  for  a  long  time  hardly  aware.  What  rare 
flashes  of  it  do  come  within  range  of  our  blurred  vision 
reveal  a  planet  so  alien  and  far  removed  from  our  experi 
ence  that  they  strike  us  as  merely  comical  or  fantastic — 
a  set  of  phenomena  so  odd  that  we  can  only  smile  over 
them  but  never  be  greatly  concerned  with  them. 

I  needed  sadly  to  readjust  myself  when  I  arrived 
in  New  York.  But'  the  incredible  thing  is  that  my 
problem  was  to  fit  myself  in  with  the  people  of  Vaslui 
and  Rumania,  my  erstwhile  fellow-townsmen  and  my 
fellow-countrymen.  It  was  not  America  in  the  large 
sense,  but  the  East  Side  Ghetto  that  upset  all  my 
calculations,  reversed  all  my  values,  and  set  my  head 
swimming.  New  York  at  first  sight  was,  after  all,  not 
so  very  unlike  many  other  large  cities  that  I  had  traveled 
through.  I  viewed  it  from  the  upper  deck  as  my 
steamer  plowed  into  the  harbor  and  up  the  river,  and 
was  not  the  least  bewildered  by  the  sight.  I  cannot 
remember  whether  I  thought  it  was  ugly  or  beautiful. 
What  did  it  matter?  From  the  pier  I  was  hustled  with 
hundreds  of  others  of  my  kind  into  a  smaller  boat  and 
taken  to  Ellis  Island.  There  I  was  put  through  a  lot 
of  meaningless  manceuvers  by  uniformed,  rough  officials. 
I  was  jostled  and  dragged  and  shoved  and  shouted  at. 

61 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

I  took  it  philosophically.  I  had  been  through  the 
performance  many  times  before — at  the  Hungarian 
border,  at  Vienna,  in  Germany,  in  Holland.  It  did 
not  touch  me,  and  I  have  forgotten  all  about  it. 

But  I  have  not  forgotten  and  I  never  can  forget  that 
first  pungent  breath  of  the  slums  which  were  to  become 
my  home  for  the  next  five  years.  I  landed  early  one 
Sunday  morning  in  December,  1900;  and  no  sooner 
did  I  touch  firm  ground  than  I  dug  into  one  of  my 
bundles  and  produced  the  one  precious  thing  that 
formed  the  link  for  me  between  my  old  home  and  my 
new.  It  was  a  crumpled  bit  of  wrapping-paper  which 
I  had  brought  all  the  way  from  Vaslui  and  on  which 
was  scribbled  in  his  own  handwriting  Couza's  address 
in  New  York.  Do  you  remember  Couza?  Ah,  well, 
he  was  to  be  my  first  disappointment  in  a  series  of 
heartaches  and  disillusionments.  With  what  hopeful 
enthusiasm  I  approached  a  policeman  at  the  Battery 
and  dumbly  shoved  my  document  into  his  face!  And 
with  what  a  sinking  of  the  heart  I  peered  through  the 
frosty  windows  of  that  jangling,  rickety  horse-car  as  it 
bounced  and  wound  through  one  shabby  alley  after 
another  on  its  way  to  Attorney  Street,  where  my 
millionaire  kinsman  held  court! 

The  mansion,  when  at  last  I  reached  it,  presented  an 
imposing  enough  front.  And  though  the  weather  was 
very  sharp  I  passed  up  and  down  a  long  time  before 
that  marble  portico  with  its  brass  railings  and  its  tall 
cans  of  garbage  and  cinders  lined  up  at  the  door,  before 

62 


FIRST    IMPRESSIONS 

I  could  summon  the  courage  to  ring  the  bell  and  enter. 
The  interior  was  even  more  impressive.  I  was  mar 
shaled  through  a  large  room  in  which  there  were  a 
number  of  sewing-machines  littered  with  quantities  of 
textile  materials,  and  into  the  parlor.  There  I  found 
the  table  set  for  breakfast,  and  a  magnificent  display 
it  was,  with  its  German-silver  coffee-urn  and  pressed- 
glass  bowl,  and  silver-plated  spoons  and  white  linen. 
After  a  somewhat  unceremonious  introduction  to  Mrs. 
Couza — a  lank,  prematurely  aged  person — handshaking 
with  Couza  himself  and  my  little  girl  cousin  whom  he 
had  brought  back  with  him  from  Vaslui,  and  after  one  or 
two  perfunctory  questions  about  my  people  and  my  jour 
ney,  I  was  invited  to  partake  of  a  cup  of  coffee  with 
cake.  I  was  amazed.  Cake  for  breakfast !  If  I  had  been 
offered  swan's  eggs  or  steak  or  broiled  pigeons,  or  almost 
any  other  thing,  I  should  have  kept  my  self-possession. 
But  the  very  notion  of  serving  cake  for  breakfast  struck 
me  as  an  extravagant  fancy  of  which  only  million 
aires  were  capable. 

And  there  was  Couza  himself,  the  magnificence  of 
him  as  I  had  seen  him  in  Vaslui  apparently  quite 
undimmed.  And  yet,  with  all  the  splendor  of  that 
scene  before  me,  I  could  not  help  wondering,  vaguely, 
as  I  thought  of  the  revolting  misery  I  had  seen  from 
the  horse-car,  whether  there  was  not  a  worm  somewhere 
at  the  heart  of  this  brilliant  appearance.  In  Vaslui,  as 
you  may  remember,  there  had  been  many  who  doubted 
and  openly  slandered  Couza  as  a  sham,  while  the  rest  of 

63 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

the  town  worshiped  him  as  a  millionaire  and  (by  his  own 
confession)  an  ambassador,  and  hailed  him  as  a  savior. 
Now,  without  anything  in  particular  having  happened,  I 
found  myself,  with  a  kind  of  terror,  sinking  into  agree 
ment  with  those  doubters  and  knockers.  Yes,  there  was 
Couza  in  his  customary  frock-coat  and  his  customary 
newspaper  spread  before  him,  but  with  some  terrible  new 
vision  I  seemed  to  see  through  all  this.  I  knew  that  no 
one  had  been  expecting  me  here,  but  I  had  an  insane  feel 
ing  that  this  whole  decor  had  been  set  against  my  coming. 
And  I  ended  up  by  wanting  to  cry  out  that  I  had  been 
cheated,  that  Couza  and  the  New  York  he  had  lured  me 
to  were  miserable  frauds,  that  I  wanted  to  go  back 
to  Vaslui. 

My  depression  was  increased  after  breakfast.  I  do 
not  know  just  what  I  had  been  expecting  that  my 
kinsman  would  do  for  me,  but  I  must  have  been  enter 
taining  some  vague  hope  that  he  would  at  once  set  me 
to  making  money  in  one  of  his  factories,  or,  at  least, 
that  he  would  use  his  great  influence  with  the  American 
Government  to  find  me  a  comfortable  place  worthy  of 
my  family  and  my  genteel  bringing  up.  I  made  some 
timid  advances  on  that  score,  but  Couza  merely  grunted 
in  his  familiar  bass  voice  and  declared  that  he  would 
see.  Mrs.  Couza  looked  puzzled,  and  intimated  that  in 
America  there  were  no  such  things  as  relatives;  that 
money  was  a  man's  best  friend,  and  that  the  wisest 
course  to  pursue  was  to  depend  on  oneself.  And  then, 
without  any  kind  of  warning,  my  youthful  cousin  spoke 

64 


FIRST   IMPRESSIONS 

up  and  asked  me  to  accompany  her  to  her  mother's 
home  on  Rivington  Street,  where  I  would  take  up  my 
temporary  lodgings  until  I  found  work. 

Of  Couza  I  was  to  see  a  great  deal  more.  He  had 
evidently  not  been  found  out  by  the  other  Rumanians, 
for  he  had  the  air  of  keeping  the  entire  colony  he  had, 
as  it  were,  brought  into  being,  under  his  spacious  pro 
tecting  wing.  On  Sundays  he  paid  us  his  weekly  visit. 
Dressed  in  his  frock-coat  and  chimney -pipe  hat*  he 
would  walk  from  Attorney  to  Rivington  Street  and  be 
greeted  deferentially  by  all  who  passed  him  on  the  way. 
He  always  had  matters  of  great  moment  to  talk  over 
with  his  sister-in-law,  and  some  time  during  his  stay 
the  two  would  mysteriously  disappear  into  one  of  the 
bedrooms,  whence  their  earnest  whispers  would  be 
heard  by  us  outside.  Mrs.  Segal,  my  cousin  and 
landlady,  entertained  a  pathetic  respect  for  Couza, 
whom  she  always  addressed  as  "Brother-in-law"  and 
never  by  his  Christian  name.  Before  departing,  Couza 
always  distributed  largess  of  the  nickel  denomination 
among  the  children,  and  a  quantity  of  advice  on  how  to 
become  Americanized  and  successful  among  the  elders. 
Once  I  had  the  distinction  of  sitting  at  the  same  table 
with  him  at  one  of  those  elaborate  East  Side  wed 
dings,  where  the  hard-earned  savings  of  years  of 
toil  of  both  bride  and  groom  are  lavishly  wasted,  and  it 
made  my  eyes  pop  to  see  him  hand  the  waiter  a  five- 
dollar  bill  in  return  for  a  toothpick!  He  was  continu 
ally  bestowing  praise  on  those  young  men  and  women 

65 


AN   AMERICAN    IN   THE    MAKING 

who  showed  a  tendency  to  become  "Americanized." 
I  tried  for  a  long  time  to  find  out  just  what  he  meant 
by  the  word,  and  never  succeeded — beyond  the  obvious 
definition  of  becoming  like  himself.  But  I  know  that 
he  frowned  upon  me  and  a  few  others  who  betrayed  an 
inclination  to  mingle  with  the  radical  and  intellectual 
life  of  the  quarter.  That  bent,  he  thought,  was  sure 
to  ruin  our  chances  for  success  in  America,  and  make  us 
persona  non  gratce  with  the  best  people. 

That  walk  from  Couza's  residence,  with  my  bundles, 
to  Rivington  Street  was  a  nightmare.  I  know  that  the 
idea  prevalent  among  Americans  is  that  the  alien 
imports  his  slums  with  him  to  the  detriment  of  his 
adopted  country,  that  the  squalor  and  the  misery  and 
the  filth  of  the  foreign  quarters  in  the  large  cities  of  the 
United  States  are  characteristic  of  the  native  life  of  the 
peoples  who  live  in  those  quarters.  But  that  is  an 
error  and  a  slander.  The  slums  are  emphatically  not 
of  our  making.  So  far  is  the  immigrant  from  being 
accustomed  to  such  living  conditions  that  the  first  thing 
that  repels  him  on  his  arrival  in  New  York  is  the 
realization  of  the  dreadful  level  of  life  to  which  his 
fellows  have  sunk.  And  when  by  sheer  use  he  comes  to 
accept  these  conditions  himself,  it  is  with  something 
of  a  fatalistic  resignation  to  the  idea  that  such  is 
America. 

I  shall  never  forget  how  depressed  my  heart  became 
as  I  trudged  through  those  littered  streets,  with  the 
rows  of  pushcarts  lining  the  sidewalks  and  the  centers 


FIRST    IMPRESSIONS 

of  the  thoroughfares,  the  ill-smelling  merchandise,  and 
the  deafening  noise.  My  pretty  little  cousin,  elegant 
in  her  American  tailored  suit,  was  stepping  along  beside 
me,  apparently  oblivious  to  the  horrible  milieu  that  was 
sickening  me  well-nigh  unto  fainting.  So  this  was 
America,  I  kept  thinking.  This  was  the  boasted 
American  freedom  and  opportunity — the  freedom  for 
respectable  citizens  to  sell  cabbages  from  hideous  carts, 
the  opportunity  to  live  in  those  monstrous,  dirty  caves 
that  shut  out  the  sunshine.  And  when  we  got  beyond 
Grand  Street  and  entered  the  Rumanian  section  my 
cousin  pointed  out  to  me  several  of  our  former  fellow- 
townspeople — men  of  worth  and  standing  they  had 
been  in  Vaslui — bargaining  vociferously  at  one  kind  of 
stand  or  another,  clad  in  an  absurd  medley  of  Rumanian 
sheep-pelts  and  American  red  sweaters.  Here  was 
Jonah  Gershon,  who  had  been  the  chairman  of  the 
hospital  committee  in  Vaslui  and  a  prominent  grain- 
merchant.  He  was  dispensing  soda-water  and  selling 
lollypops  on  the  corner  of  Essex  Street.  This  was 
Shloma  Lobel,  a  descendant  of  rabbis  and  himself  a 
learned  scholar.  In  America  he  had  attained  to  a 
basket  of  shoe-strings  and  matches  and  candles.  I 
myself  recognized  young  Layvis,  whose  father  kept  the 
great  drug-store  in  Vaslui,  and  who,  after  two  years  of 
training  in  medicine  at  the  University  of  Bucharest, 
was  enjoying  the  blessings  of  American  liberty  by 
selling  newspapers  on  the  streets. 

Here  and  there  were  women,  too,  once  neighbors  of 

67 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

ours,  mothers  of  sons,  and  mistresses  of  respectable 
households.  And  what  were  they  doing  here  in  this 
diabolical  country?  Well,  here  was  one  selling  pickles 
from  a  double  row  of  buckets  placed  on  a  square  cart, 
yelling  herself  hoarse  to  an  insensible  world  in  a  jargon 
of  Yiddish  and  "English,"  and  warming  her  hands  by 
snatches  over  an  outlandish  contraption  filled  with 
glowing  coals.  Farther  on  I  came  upon  another, 
laboriously  pushing  a  metal  box  on  wheels  and  offering 
baked  potatoes  and  hot  knishes  to  the  hungry,  cold- 
bitten  passers-by.  And  all  the  while  there  was  the 
dainty  little  figure  of  Cousin  Betty  walking  airily 
beside  me,  unaware  of  the  huge  tragedy  of  it  all.  She 
had  herself  arrived  no  more  than  a  year  before,  but  how 
callous  America  had  already  made  her !  I  asked  myself 
whether  I,  too,  would  harden  and  forget  the  better 
days  I  had  known,  and  I  fervently  hoped  not. 


VII 


THE  IMMIGRANT'S  AMERICA 


AS  I  look  back  over  my  transition  from  the  alien  to 
the  American  state  I  cannot  help  wondering  at  the 
incredible  changes  of  it.  I  see  a  curious  row  of  figures, 
as  in  a  haze,  struggling  to  some  uncertain  goal,  and 
with  a  shock  it  comes  upon  me  that  I  am  all  this  motley 
crew.  There  is  the  awkward,  unkempt,  timid  youth 
of  sixteen,  with  the  inevitable  bundles,  dumbly  inquir 
ing  his  way  from  the  Battery  to  the  slums.  A  little 
farther  on,  shivering  in  the  December  drizzle  with  a 
tray  in  his  gloveless  hand,  the  vender  of  unsellable 
candies  dreams  of  Christmas  far  away  by  his  Rumanian 
fireside.  A  tap-boy  in  an  East  Side  barroom  follows 
next;  his  hair  parted  in  the  middle,  his  gift-breeches 
fitting  a  little  snugly  on  his  well-groomed  young  carcass, 
he  hums  to  himself  over  his  tub  of  glassware.  Then 
the  sewing-machine  operative,  now  in  his  sweat-shop 
assiduously  at  work,  now  at  his  anarchist  meetings 
scheming  to  reform  the  world.  And  then  the  student 
in  school  and  college,  with  his  new  struggles  and 
problems  piled  high  over  the  old,  old  worries  about 
bread  and  bed.  And  then — and  then  the  picture  gets 

69 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

too  near  for  a  good  perspective,  and  anyhow  the  tale 
is  all  but  told.  The  alien  is  become  the  self-made 
American. 

What  a  fortunate  thing  it  was  for  me  that  I  got  to 
New  York  just  before  Christmas!  Fortunate,  that  is, 
as  immigrant's  luck  goes.  If  I  had  got  here  after 
Christmas  I  would,  without  a  doubt,  have  starved  as 
well  as  frozen.  You  know,  of  course,  why  I  froze — 
because  I  did  not  obey  my  mother,  which  is  simply 
saying  that  it  served  me  right.  Mother,  it  will  be 
remembered,  had  insisted  that  I  take  with  me  the  old 
overcoat  which  she  had  herself  recreated  out  of  a 
garment  once  worn  by  my  well-to-do  uncle  Pincus;  and 
I  had  refused  because,  to  begin  with,  I  already  had  too 
much  to  lug,  and  because  I  could  see  no  sense  in  carrying 
old  clothes  to  a  country  where  I  would  at  once  become 
rich  enough  to  buy  new  ones.  That  I  did  not  starve, 
in  spite  of  my  landing  with  the  proverbial  fifteen  cents 
in  my  pocket,  was  due  not  only  to  the  fact  that  I 
tumbled  right  into  the  midst  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
Christmas  shopping  season,  but  to  a  further  piece  of 
good  fortune. 

What  I  would  have  done  if  little  Cousin  Betty  had 
not  had  the  foresight  to  bring  over  her  folks,  is  more 
than  I  can  tell.  To  be  sure,  the  family  had  arrived 
only  about  three  months  before,  but  three  months  is  a 
long  time  in  the  evolution  of  Americans.  And  so  there 
they  were,  the  whole  seven  of  them — mother  and  son 

70 


THE    IMMIGRANT'S    AMERICA 

and  five  daughters — on  the  tunefully  named  Rivington 
Street,  already  keeping  house  and  talking  English,  and 
the  oldest  young  lady  receiving  callers,  and  Betty,  her 
next  of  age,  declaring  that  she  would  not  go  without 
pince-nez  glasses  when  all  the  fashionables,  including 
her  own  sister,  possessed  and  wore  them.  Betty  and 
her  modish  sister,  being  old  enough  to  work,  did 
consequently  work  at  men's  neckties,  while  the 
remaining  four  children  went  to  school  or  kindergarten, 
or  danced  on  the  street  to  the  music  of  the  grind-organ, 
or  stayed  at  home  to  be  rocked  in  the  cradle,  according 
to  their  varying  tastes  and  years.  Yes,  there  they  were, 
quite  Americanized,  happy  in  their  five  rooms,  three  of 
which  faced  on  Allen  Street  and  joined  their  window- 
sills  right  on  to  the  beams  of  the  Elevated  trestle.  They 
were  still  happy,  because  neckwear  was  a  genteel  trade 
that  could  be  worked  at  in  the  home  until  any  hour  of 
the  night  with  the  whole  family  lending  a  hand,  and 
because  Cousin  Jacob,  the  father  and  tyrant  of  the 
household,  had  been  left  in  Rumania  "to  settle  affairs/' 
because  the  business  of  cooking  with  gas  and  turning 
a  faucet  when  you  wanted  water  was  an  exciting  novelty 
and  because  keeping  roomers  was  a  romantic  under 
taking.  They  lived  on  the  third  floor,  which  was 
something  to  be  proud  of,  since  back  home  in  Vaslui 
none  but  the  rich  could  afford  to  live  up-stairs;  and  of 
course  "up-stairs"  in  Vaslui  was  only  a  beggarly 
second  floor. 

I  never  contrived  to  find  out  just  how  many  people 
6  71 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

did  share  those  five  rooms.  During  the  day  my  relative 
kept  up  the  interesting  fiction  of  an  apartment  with 
specialized  divisions.  Here  was  the  parlor  with  its 
sofa  and  mirror  and  American  rocking-chairs;  then 
came  the  dining-room  with  another  sofa  called  a  lounge, 
a  round  table,  and  innumerable  chairs ;  then  the  kitchen 
with  its  luxurious  fittings  in  porcelain  and  metal;  then 
the  young  ladies'  room,  in  which  there  was  a  bureau 
covered  with  quantities  of  odoriferous  bottles  and 
powder-boxes  and  other  mysteries;  and,  last  of  all, 
Mrs.  Segal's  and  the  children's  room.  I  remember 
how  overwhelmed  I  was  with  this  impressive  luxury 
when  I  arrived.  But  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock  in 
the  evening  this  imposing  structure  suddenly  crumbled 
away  in  the  most  amazing  fashion.  The  apartment 
suddenly  became  a  camp.  The  sofas  opened  up  and 
revealed  their  true  character.  The  bureau  lengthened 
out  shamelessly,  careless  of  its  daylight  pretensions. 
Even  the  wash-tubs,  it  turned  out,  were  a  miserable 
sham.  The  carved  dining-room  chairs  arranged  them 
selves  into  two  rows  that  faced  each  other  like  dancers 
in  a  cotillion.  So  that  I  began  to  ask  myself  whether 
there  was,  after  all,  anything  in  that  whole  surprising 
apartment  but  beds. 

The  two  young  ladies'  room  was  not,  I  learned,  a 
young  ladies'  room  at  all;  it  was  a  female  dormitory. 
The  sofa  in  the  parlor  alone  held  four  sleepers,  of  whom 
I  was  one.  We  were  ranged  broadside,  with  the 
rocking-chairs  at  the  foot  to  insure  the  proper  length. 

72 


THE    IMMIGRANT'S    AMERICA 

And  the  floor  was  by  no  means  exempt.  I  counted  no 
fewer  than  nine  male  inmates  in  that  parlor  alone  one 
night.  Mrs.  Segal  with  one  baby  slept  on  the  wash- 
tubs,  while  the  rest  of  the  youngsters  held  the  kitchen 
floor.  The  pretended  children's  room  was  occupied 
by  a  man  and  his  family  of  four,  whom  he  had  recently 
brought  over,  although  he,  with  ambitions  for  a  camp 
of  his  own,  did  not  remain  long. 

Getting  in  late  after  the  others  had  retired  was  an 
enterprise  requiring  all  a  man's  courage  and  circum 
spection,  for  it  involved  the  rousing  of  an  alarmed, 
overworked,  grumbling  landlady  to  unbolt  the  door; 
the  exchange  in  stage  whispers  of  a  complicated  system 
of  challenges  and  passwords  through  the  keyhole;  the 
squeezing  through  cracks  in  intermediate  doors,  which 
were  rendered  stationary  by  the  presence  of  beds  on 
both  sides;  much  cautious  high-stepping  over  a  vast 
field  of  sprawling,  unconscious  bodies;  and  lastly,  the 
gentle  but  firm  compressing  and  condensing  of  one's 
relaxed  bedmates  in  order  to  make  room  for  oneself. 
It  was  on  such  occasions  as  these  also  that  one  first 
became  aware  of  how  heavy  the  air  was  with  the  reek 
of  food  and  strong  breath  and  fermenting  perspiration, 
the  windows  being,  of  course,  hermetically  sealed  with 
putty  and  a  species  of  padding  imported  from  home 
which  was  tacked  around  all  real  and  imaginary 
cracks. 

In  the  morning  one  was  awakened  by  the  puffing  of 
steam-engines  and  the  clatter  of  wheels  outside  the 

73 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

windows,  and  then  the  turmoil  of  American  existence 
began  in  real  earnest.  First,  the  furniture  must  be 
reconstructed  and  restored  to  its  decorative  character, 
and  then  the  scattered  disorder  of  feather-bedding  must 
be  cleared  from  the  floors  and  whisked  away  into  cup 
boards  and  trunks.  /The  men-folks  had  to  fly  into  their 
clothes  before  the  ladies  emerged  from  their  quarters, 
so  that  the  latter  might  pass  through  the  parlor  on  their 
way  to  the  kitchen.  In  spite  of  all  the  precautions 
taken  the  night  before,  some  one  invariably  missed  one 
portion  or  another  of  his  costume,  which  he  promptly 
proceeded  to  search  for  with  a  great  deal  of  wailing  and 
complaining  against  his  own  fate  in  particular  and  the 
intolerable  anarchy  of  Columbus's  country  in  general. 
Then  followed  a  furious  scramble  for  the  sink,  because 
the  towel  had  a  way  of  getting  unmanageably  wet 
toward  the  end;  and  this  made  it  necessary  for  Mrs. 
Segal,  who  slept  in  the  kitchen,  to  be  up  before  every 
one  else.  By  the  time  the  camp  had  once  more  become 
an  elegant  apartment,  the  coffee  was  already  steaming 
on  the  round  table  in  the  dining-room,  and  the  whole 
colony  sat  down  to  partake  of  it  before  scattering  to  its 
various  labors,  breakfast  and  laundry  being,  of  course, 
included  in  the  rent. 

The  first  two  days  Mrs.  Segal  would  not  hear  of  my 
going  out  to  look  for  work.  She  insisted  that  I  must 
rest  up  from  the  journey,  look  around  a  bit,  and  in 
general  play  the  guest.  "A  guest  is  a  guest  even  in 
America,"  she  said.  "And  don't  worry,"  she  added; 

74 


THE    IMMIGRANT'S    AMERICA 

"you'll  have  time  enough  to  make  the  money."  After 
which  she  smiled  in  a  peculiar  manner.  So  I  stayed 
home  alone  with  her,  and  feeling  that  I  owed  her  some 
thing  in  return  for  her  hospitality,  I  tried  to  make  my 
self  useful  to  her  by  helping  with  the  housework.  The 
army  of  roomers  had  no  sooner  dispersed  than  she 
packed  the  youngsters  off  and  threw  herself  into  the 
task  with  enthusiasm.  "Housekeeping,"  said  she,  "is 
wonderfully  easy  in  America." 

I  had  to  agree  that  it  was  wonderful,  but  I  myself  at 
least  could  hardly  say  that  I  found  it  easy.  It  certainly 
was  an  extravagant  way  of  doing  things.  The  first 
thing  we  were  going  to  do,  she  told  me,  was  to  scrub  the 
kitchen.  "Very  well,"  I  said.  "Where  do  you  keep  the 
sand?"  "Sand!"  she  exclaimed.  "This  is  not  Vaslui," 
and  proceeded  to  take  the  neatly  printed  wrapper  off  a 
cake  of  soap  which  back  home  would  have  been  thought 
too  good  to  wash  clothes  with.  For  the  floor  she 
employed  a  pretty,  white  powder  out  of  a  metal  can  and 
a  brush  with  which  I  had  the  night  before  cleaned  my 
clothes.  Moreover,  she  kept  the  light  burning  all  the 
time  we  were  in  the  kitchen,  which  was  criminal  waste 
fulness  even  if  the  room  was  a  bit  dark.  She  herself 
would  certainly  not  have  done  such  a  thing  at  home. 

About  ten  o'clock  she  started  off  to  market.     If  she 

had  not  told  me  where  she  was  going,  and  if  it  had  not 

been  a  week-day,  I  would  have  believed  she  was  on  her 

way  to  temple.     There  she  stood  in  her  taffeta  gown 

,  (it  was  the  very  one  mother  had  once  told  me  had  come 

75 


AN   AMERICAN   IN    THE    MAKING 

from  her  wedding)  and  all  the  jewelry  I  used  to  see  on 
her  at  the  services  in  Vaslui,  and  a  pair  of  brand-new 
patent-leather  pumps.  As  soon  as  she  was  out  of  the 
house  I  took  the  opportunity  to  blow  out  the  gas  in 
the  kitchen,  only,  however,  to  be  scolded  for  my  pains 
when  she  re-entered  and  to  be  informed  that  greenhorns 
must  keep  their  eyes  open  and  their  hands  off.  I  could 
see  nothing  wrong  in  what  I  had  done,  but  she  kept 
saying  over  and  over  again  that  I  had  narrowly  escaped 
death  or  blowing  up  the  building. 

The  things  she  brought  back  from  market!  Egg 
plant  in  midwinter,  and  tomatoes,  and  a  yellow  fruit 
which  had  the  shape  of  a  cucumber  and  the  taste  of  a 
muskmelon.  I  had  never  seen  such  huge  eggplants  in 
all  my  life.  And  here  was  another  thing  which  was 
entirely  strange,  but  which  inquiry  revealed  was  cauli 
flower — an  article  father  had  once  eaten  at  the  home  of 
my  cousin,  the  doctor,  in  Bucharest  and  had  never  ceased 
talking  about.  Could  there  be  anything  in  it,  after  all? 
I  repeatedly  asked  myself  during  that  day.  Was  I 
doing  Couza  an  injustice?  Oh,  if  the  Lord  would  only 
grant  that  I  should  turn  out  to  have  been  mistaken! 
Yes,  but  how  about  the  boarders?  If  the  Segals  had 
actually  made  their  million  in  these  three  months,  why 
did  they  share  their  fine  apartment  with  strangers? 
Who  but  the  verj  lowest  of  people  kept  roomers  in 
Vaslui?  I  could  not  figure  it  out.  America  was  surely 
a  land  of  contradictions. 

Mrs.  Segal  and  I  had  meat  in  the  middle  of  the  day, 

76 


THE    IMMIGRANT'S   AMERICA 

and  then  about  six,  when  the  two  girls  got  home,  there 
was  meat  again.  I  remember  writing  home  about  it 
the  next  day  and  telling  the  folks  that  they  might  think 
I  was  exaggerating,  but  that  it  was  literally  true,  all  the 
same,  that  in  New  York  every  night  was  Friday  night 
and  every  day  was  Saturday,  as  far  as  food  went,  any 
way.  Why,  they  even  had  twists  instead  of  plain  rye 
bread,  to  say  nothing  of  rice-and-raisins  (which  is 
properly  a  Purim  dish)  and  liver  paste  and  black  radish. 
And  then  about  eight  in  the  evening  two  young  gentle 
men  called  on  Cousin  Rose  and  capped  the  climax  of  the 
whole  day  by  insisting  on  bringing  in  some  beer  in  a 
pitcher  from  the  corner  saloon.  There  I  was!  I  could 
say  all  I  wanted  to  about  America  being  a  sham,  but 
no  one  would  believe  a  word  of  it  until  I  could  prove 
that  Segals  and  Abners  and  Schneers  indulged  in  such 
luxuries  as  beer  at  home — a  thing  which  no  one  could 
prove  because  it  was  not  so. 


VIII 

"HOW   DO   YOU    LIKE   AMERICA?" 

NO,  my  first  impression  of  America  was  right,  and 
no  mistake.  With  every  day  that  passed  I  became 
more  and  more  overwhelmed  at  the  degeneration  of  my 
fellow-countrymen  in  this  new  home  of  theirs.  Even 
their  names  had  become  emasculated  and  devoid  of 
either  character  or  meaning.  Mordecai — a  name  full 
of  romantic  association — had  been  changed  to  the 
insipid  monosyllable  Max.  Rebecca — mother  of  the 
race — was  in  America  Becky.  Samuel  had  been  shorn 
to  Sam,  Abraham  to  Abe,  Israel  to  Izzy.  The  sur 
prising  dearth  of  the  precious  words  betrayed  a  most 
lamentable  lack  of  imagination.  Whole  battalions  of 
people  were  called  Joe;  the  Harrys  alone  could  have 
repopulated  Vaslui;  and  of  Morrises  there  was  no  end. 
With  the  women-folks  matters  went  even  worse.  It  did 
not  seem  to  matter  at  all  what  one  had  been  called  at 
home.  The  first  step  toward  Americanization  was  to 
fall  into  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  great  tribes  of 
Rosies  and  Annies. 

This  distressing  transformation,  I  discovered  before 
long,  went  very  much  deeper  than  occupation  and  the 

78 


'HOW    DO    YOU    LIKE    AMERICA?' 

externals  of  fashion.  It  pervaded  every  chamber  of 
their  life.  Cut  adrift  suddenly  from  their  ancient 
moorings,  they  were  floundering  in  a  sort  of  moral  void. 
Good  manners  and  good  conduct,  reverence  and  religion, 
had  all  gone  by  the  board,  and  the  reason  was  that  these 
things  were  not  American.  A  grossness  of  behavior,  a 
loudness  of  speech,  a  certain  repellent  "American" 
smartness  in  intercourse,  were  thought  necessary,  if  one 
did  not  want  to  be  taken  for  a  greenhorn  or  a  boor. 
The  ancient  racial  respect  for  elders  had  completely 
disappeared.  Everybody  was  alike  addressed  as 
"thou"  and  "say";  and  the  worst  of  it  was  that  when 
one  contemplated  American  old  age  one  was  compelled 
to  admit  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  justification  for 
slighting  it.  It  had  forfeited  its  claim  to  deference 
because  it  had  thrown  away  its  dignity.  Tottering 
grandfathers,  with  one  foot  in  the  grave,  had  snipped 
off  their  white  beards  and  laid  aside  their  skull-caps  and 
their  snuff-boxes  and  paraded  around  the  streets  of  a 
Saturday  afternoon  with  cigarettes  in  their  mouths, 
when  they  should  have  been  lamenting  the  loss  of  the 
Holy  City  in  the  study-room  adjoining  the  synagogue. 
And  old  women  with  crinkled  faces  had  doffed  their 
peruques  and  their  cashmere  kerchiefs  and  donned  the 
sleeveless  frocks  of  their  daughters  and  adopted  the 
frivolities  of  the  powder-puff  and  the  lip-stick. 

The  younger  folk,  in  particular,  had  undergone  an 
intolerable  metamorphosis.  As  they  succeeded  in  pick 
ing  up  English  more  speedily  than  their  elders,  they 

79 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

assumed  a  defiant  attitude  toward  their  parents,  which 
the  latter  found  themselves  impotent  to  restrain  and, 
in  too  many  cases,  secretly  approved  as  a  step  toward 
the  emancipation  of  their  offspring.  Parents,  indeed, 
were  altogether  helpless  under  the  domination  of  their 
own  children.  There  prevailed  a  superstition  in  the 
quarter  to  the  effect  that  the  laws  of  America  gave  the 
father  no  power  over  the  son,  and  that  the  police  stood 
ready  to  interfere  in  behalf  of  the  youngsters,  if  any 
attempt  to  carry  out  the  barbarous  European  notion 
of  family  relations  were  made. 

Thus  the  younger  generation  was  master  of  the 
situation,  and  kept  the  older  in  wholesome  terror  of 
itself.  Mere  slips  of  boys  and  girls  went  around  to 
gether  and  called  it  love  after  the  American  fashion. 
The  dance-halls  were  thronged  with  them.  The  parks 
saw  them  on  the  benches  in  pairs  until  all  hours  of  the 
morning,  and  they  ran  things  in  their  parents'  homes 
to  suit  themselves,  particularly  when  their  families  were 
partially  dependent  on  them  for  support.  Darker 
things  than  these  were  happening.  These  were  the 
shameful  days  when  Allen  Street,  in  the  heart  of  Little 
Rumania,  was  honeycombed  with  houses  of  evil  repute, 
and  the  ignorant,  untamed  daughters  of  immi 
grants  furnished  the  not  always  unwilling  victims. 
And  for  the  first  time  in  history  Jewish  young  men 
by  the  score  were  drifting  into  the  ranks  of  the 
criminal. 

The  young,  however,  were  not  the  only  offenders. 

80 


"HOW   DO    YOU    LIKE    AMERICA?' 

The  strong  wine  of  American  freedom  was  going  to  the 
heads  of  all  ages  alike.  The  newspapers  of  the  Ghetto 
were  continually  publishing  advertisements  and  offering 
rewards  for  the  arrest  of  men  who  had  deserted  their 
wives  and  children.  Hundreds  of  husbands  who  had 
parted  from  theip  families  in  Europe  with  tears  in  their 
eyes,  and  had  promised,  quite  sincerely,  to  send  for 
them  as  soon  as. they  had  saved  up  enough  money, 
were  masquerading  as  bachelors  and  offering  themselves 
in  wedlock  to  younger  women  for  love  or  for  money. 
Very  often  the  entanglement  reached  that  screaming 
stage  which  lies  on  the  borderland  of  tragedy  and  farce, 
when  the  European  wife,  having  been  secretly  and 
hurriedly  sent  for  by  her  American  relatives,  appeared 
on  the  scene  and  dragged  the  culprit  before  the  rabbi 
or  the  law-court. 

Whence  had  my  countrymen  got  their  sickening 
habits  of  carelessness  and  downright  filthiness?  It  was 
impossible  to  pass  through  the  streets  after  dark  without 
being  hit  from  above  by  a  parcel  of  garbage  or  a  pail  of 
dirty  water.  Where  was  the  good  of  dressing  the  chil 
dren  in  expensive  white  clothes  and  white  kid  shoes  and, 
apparently,  never  washing  their  poor  little  shrunken 
pale  faces?  A  new  pest  of  scurrying  creatures  unheard 
of  at  home  had  made  their  appearance  here,  which 
shared  the  dwellings  of  my  friends  and  got  into  their 
food  and  their  beds;  and  the  amazing  part  of  it  was 
that  no  one  seemed  to  mind  them  beyond  making  jokes 
about  them  and  using  the  word  by  which  .they  were 

81 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

called  as  a  nickname  for  one's  neighbors  or  even  as  a 
pet-name  for  one's  own  offspring. 

Ah,  the  blessed  life  we  had  left  behind!  And  for 
what?  To  chase  after  a  phantom  raised  by  Couza  the 
fanatic  and  the  humbug.  To  follow  a  will-o'-the-wisp 
and  sink  in  the  quagmire  of  this  repulsive  Gehenna. 
Back  there  at  home  the  houses  were  low  and  made  of 
mud,  and  instead  of  hardwood  floors  the  ground  was 
plastered  with  fresh  clay — mixed  with  manure  to  give 
it  solidity — which  had  to  be  renewed  every  Friday. 
A  family  occupied  but  one  room,  or  two  at  the  most; 
but  the  houses  were  individual  and  sufficient,  and  the 
yard  was  spacious  and  green  in  summer,  filled  with 
trees  and  flowers  to  delight  the  senses.  Business  men 
scarcely  earned  in  a  week  what  a  peddler  or  an  operator 
made  here  in  a  day,  but  they  were  free  men  and  had  a 
standing  in  the  community,  and  with  God's  help  they 
supported  their  families  in  decency.  They  were  not 
unattached,  drifting  nobodies,  as  every  one  was  here. 
Life  ran  along  smoothly  on  an  unpretentious  plane. 
There  was  no  ambition  for  extravagance,  and  therefore 
no  unhappiness  through  the  lack  of  luxuries.  Homes 
in  Vaslui  were  not  furnished  with  parlor  sets  of  velvet, 
and  the  women-folks  did  not  wear  diamonds  to  market; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  did  not  have  to  endure  the 
insolence  of  the  instalment  agent,  who  made  a  fearful 
scene  whenever  he  failed  to  receive  his  weekly  payment. 
No  one  was  envious  because  his  neighbor's  wife  had 
finer  clothes  and  costlier  jewels  than  his  own  had.  The 

82 


'HOW    DO    YOU    LIKE    AMERICA?' 

pride  of  a  family  was  in  its  godliness  and  in  its  respected 
forebears.  Such  luxury  as  there  was  consisted  in  heavy 
copper  utensils  and  silver  candelabra,  which  were  passed 
on  as  heirlooms  from  generation  to  generation — solid, 
substantial  things,  not  the  fleeting  vanities  of  dress  and 
upholstery. 

The  prices  of  things  in  America  were  extortionate. 
The  rental  per  month  for  a  dark,  noisome  "apartment" 
on  Rivington  Street  would  have  paid  for  a  dwelling  in 
Vaslui  for  an  entire  year.  A  shave  cost  ten  cents, 
which  was  half  a  franc;  if  we  had  had  to  pay  that  much 
for  it  in  Vaslui  the  whole  community  would  have 
turned  barbers.  When  I  asked  my  cousin  landlady 
how  much  my  room-rent  would  come  to,  she  told  me 
that  every  one  paid  fifty  cents  a  week.  Two  francs 
fifty!  I  tried  to  calculate  all  the  possible  things  that 
my  parents  could  buy  for  that  vast  sum  at  home  if  I 
were  to  desist  from  the  extravagance  of  living  in  a 
house,  and  I  resolved  that  as  soon  as  I  found  work  I 
would  try  to  devise  some  substitute,  and  send  the 
money  home  where  it  could  be  put  to  some  sane  use. 

My  Americanized  compatriots  were  not  happy,  by 
their  own  confession.  As  long  as  they  kept  at  work  or 
prospered  at  peddling,  they  affected  a  hollow  gaiety 
and  delighted  in  producing  a  roll  of  paper  dollars 
(which  they  always  carried  loose  in  their  pockets, 
instead  of  keeping  them  securely  in  purses  as  at  home) 
on  the  least  provocation,  and  frequented  the  coffee 
houses,  and  indulged  in  high  talk  about  their  abilities 

83 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    TllE    MAKING 

and  their  prosperity,  and  patronizingly  inquired  of  the 
greenhorn  how  he  liked  America,  and  smiled  in  a 
knowing  way  when  the  greenhorn  replied  by  cursing 
Columbus.  But  no  sooner  did  he  lose  his  job  or  fail 
in  the  business  of  peddling  than  he  changed  his  tune  and 
sighed  for  the  fleshpots  of  his  native  home,  and  hung 
his  head  when  asked  how  he  was  getting  on,  and 
anathematized  America,  and  became  interested  in 
socialism.  At  such  times  it  was  quite  apparent  that 
America's  hold  on  his  affections  was  very  precarious— 
a  thing  that  needed  constant  reinforcing  by  means  of 
very  definite,  material  adhesives  to  keep  it  from 
ignominious  collapse. 

How  feeble  his  attachment  to  his  adoptive  land  was, 
and  how  easily  his  sentiments  shifted  from  adoration 
to  indifference  or  contempt,  was  strikingly  illustrated 
by  the  various  and  contrasting  names  he  had  for 
America.  Now  it  was  gratefully  termed  the  home  of 
freedom  and  then,  with  a  shade  of  irony  in  the  tone,  he 
referred  to  it  as  the  land  of  gold.  If  he  brought  home 
a  satisfactory  bargain  from  the  pushcart  merchant  he 
beamed  and  sang  the  praises  of  the  "all-right  country," 
and  the  next  moment  if  the  article  turned  out  to  be 
discolored  or  rotten  or  otherwise  defective  he  fussed  and 
fumed  and  swore  that  there  never  had  been  such  a 
stronghold  of  fakes  in  all  the  world  as  this  same  America. 
His  fondest  hope  was  to  become  a  "citisnik"  of  the 
Republic,  but  the  merest  scratching  of  the  surface 
showed  beyond  a  doubt  that  his  desire  for  naturalization 

84 


'HOW    DO    YOU    LIKE    AMERICA?' 

did  not  have  its  roots  in  any  conversion  to  the  principles 
of  democratic  self-government,  but  rather  in  certain 
eminently  human  motives.  Abe  Sussman,  for  instance, 
entertained  an  ambition  to  become  a  street-cleaner 
because  he  hated  peddling  and  because  his  brother-in- 
law,  Joel,  who  had  come  here  before  him,  was  in  that 
service.  Jake  Field  had  a  crippled  mother  at  home 
who  had  once  before  been  brought  over  at  ruinous 
expense,  only  to  be  excluded  by  the  despots  of  Ellis 
Island.  He  was  certain  that  the  American  Govern 
ment  would  think  twice  before  rejecting  the  parent  of 
a  full-fledged  voter.  Joe  Katchke  was  perfectly  frank 
in  telling  you  that  if  he  only  had  a  pull  with  the  district 
leader — which,  of  course,  he  could  not  have  as  long  as 
he  had  no  papers — he  could  get  a  letter  from  him  to  the 
street-car  company's  superintendent  which,  added  to 
his  fine  command  of  English,  would  at  once  get  him  a 
job  as  a  conductor.  Harry  Heller's  ambitions  were  not 
quite  so  soaring.  He,  too,  craved  a  pull  with  the 
governing  powers,  but  only  for  the  modest  purpose  of 
making  the  renewal  of  his  peddler's  license  less  trouble 
some  and  of  assuaging  the  rapacity  of  the  policeman. 

As  a  greenhorn  I  got  my  share  of  the  ridicule  and  the 
condescension  and  the  bullying  that  fell  to  the  lot  of 
my  kind.  In  my  cousin's  house  I  was  constantly 
meeting  Americanized  young  men  who  came  to  call  on 
the  girls,  and  invariably  I  must  submit  to  the  ever 
lasting  question  and  its  concomitant,  the  idle  grin: 
"How  do  you  like  America?"  Well,  after  what  I  have 

85 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

given  you  of  my  impressions,  you  may  readily  guess 
that  I  did  not  like  America;  that,  indeed,  I  very 
emphatically  hated  America.  In  my  most  courageous 
moments,  which  usually  came  to  me  when  my  young 
gentleman  questioner  was  particularly  insistent  and 
particularly  stupid,  I  declared  so  openly  and  with  great 
stress,  which  declaration  of  mine  was  regularly  met  with 
loud  peals  of  superior  laughter,  interspersed  with  phrases 
of  that  miserable  gibberish  which  the  Americanized 
of  the  foreign  colony  fondly  regard  as  English,  and 
which,  even  in  those  first  days,  I  recognized  for  the  sham 
it  was.  After  such  encounters  I  came  away  hating 
America  more  than  ever. 

Yes,  I  hated  America  very  earnestly  on  my  first 
acquaintance  with  her.  And  yet  I  must  confess  here 
and  now  that  for  a  whole  year  every  letter  that  came 
from  my  parents  in  Vaslui  was  an  offer  to  return  home, 
and  that  I  steadily  refused  to  accept  it.  Those  letters, 
by  the  by,  added  their  very  considerable  share  to  the 
tragic  burden  of  my  readjustment,  for  my  parents 
suggested  that,  if  I  liked  America  well  enough  to  remain 
there,  they  would  endeavor  to  raise  the  money  and 
join  me.  And  to  this  I  was  constrained  to  reply, 
"Vaslui  is  not  for  me,  and  America  is  not  for  you,  dear 
parents  mine."  These  words  were  obviously  a  confes 
sion  that  our  separation  must  remain  indefinite.  I  did 
not  want  my  parents  to  come  to  America,  because  I 
could  not  endure  the  thought  of  father  as  a  match- 
peddler  on  Orchard  Street;  and  since  he  was  neither  a 

86 


"HOW    DO    YOU    LIKE    AMERICA?' 

shoemaker  nor  a  woman's  tailor  nor  a  master  of  any 
of  the  other  profitable  professions  in  America,  and  since. 
I  was  as  yet  far  from  equal  to  the  task  of  supporting  the 
family,  there  was  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  to  rest  apart. 
But  the  odd  thing  was  that  I  declined  the  alternative 
offer.  Somehow,  even  in  those  dark  days  of  greenhorn- 
hood,  an  occasional  ray  would  penetrate  through  the 
gloom  and  reveal  another  America  than  that  of  the 
slums. 

And  in  the  mean  time  the  East  Side  Ghetto  was  my 
America,  a  theater  within  a  theater,  as  it  were.  No,  it 
was  even  more  circumscribed  than  that.  The  outsider 
may  imagine  that  the  Ghetto  is  a  unified,  homogeneous 
country,  but  a  little  more  intimate  acquaintance  will 
rectify  that  mistake.  There  are  in  it  strata  and  sub 
strata,  each  with  a  culture,  a  tradition,  and  a  method  of 
life  peculiar  to  itself.  The  East  Side  is  not  a  colony; 
it  is  a  miniature  federation  of  semi-independent,  allied 
states.  To  be  sure,  it  is  a  highly  compact  union, 
territorially.  One  traverses  a  square,  and  lo!  he  finds 
himself  in  a  new  polity.  The  leap  in  civilization  from 
Ridge  Street  to  Madison  Street  is  a  much  wider  one 
than  that  between  Philadelphia  and  Seattle.  The  line 
of  demarkation  is  drawn  sharply  even  to  the  point  of 
language — the  most  obvious  of  national  distinctions. 
Though  both  speak  Yiddish,  the  Jew  from  Austrian 
Poland  will  at  first  hardly  understand  his  coreligionist 
from  Lithuania.  Their  dialects  differ  enormously  in 
accent  and  intonation  and  very  appreciably  in  vocabu- 

7  87 


AN   AMERICAN   IN    THE    MAKING 

lary.  And  each  separate  group  entertains  a  humorous, 
kindly  contempt  for  the  speech  and  the  manners  and  the 
foibles  of  all  the  others. 

As  I  had  come  from  Vaslui,  it  was  my  lot  to  settle  in 
that  odd  bit  of  world  which  I  have  referred  to  as  Little 
Rumania.  It  was  bounded  on  the  east  by  Clinton 
Street,  with  Little  Galicia  extending  on  the  other  side 
to  the  East  River;  by  Grand  Street  on  the  south,  with 
the  Russians  and  Lithuanians  beyond;  and  on  the 
north  lay  the  untracked  wilds  surrounding  Tompkins 
Square  Park,  which  to  me  was  the  vast  dark  continent 
of  the  "real  Americans." 

Even  as  far  back  as  1900  this  Little  Rumania  was 
beginning  to  assume  a  character  of  its  own.  Already  it 
had  more  restaurants  than  the  Russian  quarter — estab 
lishments  with  signs  in  English  and  Rumanian,  and 
platters  of  liver  paste,  chopped  eggplant,  and  other  dis 
tinctive  edibles  in  the  windows.  On  Rivington  Street 
and  on  Allen  Street  the  Rumanian  delicatessen-store  was 
making  its  appearance,  with  its  goose-pastrama  and 
kegs  of  ripe  olives  and  tubs  of  salted  vine-leaves  (which, 
when  wrapped  around  ground  meat,  make  a  most  de 
licious  dish),  and  the  moon-shaped  cash  caval  cheese 
made  of  sheep's  milk,  and,  most  important  of  all,  the 
figure  of  an  impossible  American  version  of  a  Rumanian 
shepherd  in  holiday  costume,  with  a  flute  at  his  waxen 
lips,  standing  erect  in  the  window.  Unlike  the  other 
groups  of  the  Ghetto,  the  Rumanian  is  a  bon  vivant 
and  a  pleasure-lover;  therefore  he  did  not  long  delay 

88 


"HOW   DO   YOU    LIKE    AMERICA?5 

to  establish  the  pastry-shop  (while  his  Russian  neighbor 
was  establishing  the  lecture  platform) ,  whither  of  a  Satur 
day  afternoon,  after  his  nap,  he  would  betake  himself 
with  his  friends  and  his  ladies  and  consume  dozens 
of  dainty  confections  with  ice-cold  water. 

He  it  was,  also,  who,  out  of  a  complex  desire  to  serve 
his  stomach  and  his  faith,  brought  forth  an  institution 
which  has  now  become  universal  in  America — the  dairy 
lunch-room — which,  owing  to  the  exigencies  of  religion, 
was  originally  just  what  it  is  called,  a  place  where 
nothing  but  the  most  palatable  dishes  built  out  of 
milk  and  milk  products  were  to  be  had,  and  where  no 
morsel  that  had  been  in  the  vicinity  of  meat  could  be 
obtained  for  love  or  money.  And,  most  characteristic 
of  all,  he  transplanted  that  unique  near-Eastern  affair, 
the  kazin,  or  coffee-house,  which  is  a  place  of  congrega 
tion  for  the  socially-minded,  and  where  the  drinking  of 
fragrant,  pasty  Turkish  coffee  is  merely  incidental  to  a 
game  of  cards,  or  billiards,  or  dominoes. 

This  was  America,  and  for  this  we  had  walked  here— 
a  gay  Rumanian  city  framed  in  the  stench  and  the 
squalor  and  the  oppressive,  noisy  tenements  of  New 
York's  dingiest  slums.  As  I  have  already  intimated, 
of  the  broader  life  and  the  cleaner  air  of  that  vast  theater 
within  which  this  miniature  stage  was  set  I  was  hardly 
aware.  What  I  knew  of  it  came  to  me  vaguely  by 
hearsay  in  occasional  allusions  to  a  hazy,  remote  world 
called  variously  "up-town"  and  "the  South,9'  to  which 
the  more  venturesome  of  my  fellows  now  and  then 

89 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

resorted,  only  to  find  their  spunk  failing  them  and  to 
return  forthwith.  In  addition,  there  was  the  police 
man,  who  made  life  miserable  for  the  peddlei,  while 
accepting  his  bribe.  He  was  a  representative  of  "up 
town,"  for  as  soon  as  his  tyrannical  day's  work  was 
over  he  vanished  into  the  mysteries  of  that  uncharted 
region.  There  was,  likewise,  the  school-teacher,  with 
her  neat  figure  and  sweet  smile,  and  a  bevy  of  admiring 
little  children  always  clinging  to  her  skirts  as  she  tried 
to  make  her  way  from  the  corner  of  Eldridge  Street 
"up-town."  Now  and  then  in  my  search  for  work  I 
wandered  into  Broadway  and  across  Fifth  Avenue,  and 
stared  at  the  extravagant  displays  in  the  shop  windows 
and  the  obvious  wealth  (judging  from  their  clothes)  of 
the  passers-by.  But  altogether  I  remained  untouched 
by  the  life  of  greater  America.  It  merely  brushed  me 
in  passing,  but  it  was  too  far  removed  from  my  sphere 
to  affect  me  one  way  or  the  other. 


IX 

VENTURES  AND   ADVENTURES 

r  return  to  my  cousin's  camp  and  the  order  of 
events. 

The  two  days  allotted  to  a  guest  being  over,  I  was 
given  broadly  to  understand  that  I  must  enter  the  race 
for  American  dollars.     During  the  remainder  of  that 
week  and  throughout  the  entire  week  following  I  went 
about  "trying."     Early  in  the  morning  I  would  go 
down-stairs  to  buy  a  World,  and  after  breakfast  I  would 
get  one  of  the  children  to  translate  the  want  advertise 
ments  for  me.     When  I  glanced  at  the  length  and  the 
number  of  those  columns,  I  saw  that  I  would  not  be 
long  in  getting  rich.     There  were  hundreds  of  shops  and 
factories  and  offices,  it  seemed,  that  wanted  my  help. 
They  literally  implored  me  to  come.     They  promised 
me  high  wages,  and  regular  pay,  and  fine  working  condi 
tions.     And  then  I  would  go  and  blunder  around  for 
hours,  trying  to  find  where  they  were,  stand  in  line 
with  a  hundred  other  applicants,  approach  timidly  when 
my  turn  came,  and  be  passed  up  with  a  significant 
glance  at  my  appearance.     Now  and  then,  in  a  sweat 
shop,  I  would  get  a  hearing;  and  then  the  proposition 

91 


AN   AMERICAN   IN    THE    MAKING 

was  that  if  I  would  work  without  pay  for  two  weeks, 
and  give  ten  dollars  for  instruction,  I  would  be  taught 
to  be  a  presser  or  an  operator.  The  thing  baffled  me. 
I  could  not  bridge  the  gulf  between  the  advertised 
appeals  for  help  and  this  arrogant  indifference  of  the 
employing  superintendent. 

Half  the  time  I  had  not  the  remotest  idea  of  what  was 
wanted.  I  had  been  told  what  a  butcher  was  and  what 
was  meant  by  a  grocery-store.  But  what  were  shipping 
clerks,  and  stock  clerks,  and  bill  clerks,  and  all  the  other 
scores  of  varieties  of  clerk  that  were  so  eagerly  sought? 
However,  I  did  not  let  trifles  discourage  me.  There 
was  only  one  way  to  succeed  in  America,  my  friends 
continually  told  me,  and  that  was  by  constant,  tireless, 
undiscriminating  trying.  If  you  failed  in  one  place,  or 
in  ten  places,  or  in  a  hundred  places,  you  must  not  give 
up.  Keep  on  trying  and  you  are  bound  to  be  taken 
somewhere.  Moreover,  American  occupations  were  so 
flimsy,  they  required  so  little  skill  or  experience,  that  a 
fellow  with  a  little  intelligence  and  the  normal  amount 
of  daring  could  bluff  his  way  into  almost  any  job.  The 
main  thing  was  to  say  "yes"  whenever  you  were  asked 
whether  you  could  do  this  or  that.  That  was  the  way 
everybody  got  work.  The  employer  never  knew  the 
difference.  So  I  followed  the  counsel  of  the  wise,  in  so 
far  as  my  limited  spunk  permitted,  and  knocked  at 
every  door  in  sight.  Time  and  time  again  I  applied, 
at  department  stores  in  need  of  floor-walkers  (that,  I 
thought,  could  certainly  require  no  special  gifts),  at 

92 


VENTURES    AND    ADVENTURES 

offices  where  stenographers  were  wanted,  at  factories 
demanding  foremen.  But  my  friends'  predictions 
appeared  to  be  only  half-true.  Of  failure  there  was, 
indeed,  no  end,  but  that  ultimate  inevitable  success 
which  I  had  been  promised  did  not  come.  There  was 
nothing  to  do  but  change  my  tactics. 

Then  there  was  the  problem  of  distances.  I  could 
not  dream  of  paying  car  fares  everywhere  I  went. 
Even  if  I  had  had  the  nickel,  the  mere  thought  of 
spending  twenty-five  bani  at  every  turn  would  have 
seemed  an  appalling  extravagance.  And,  somehow,  the 
jobs  that  I  supposed  I  had  a  fair  chance  of  getting  were 
always  at  the  ends  of  creation.  An  errand-boy  was 
wanted  in  Long  Island  City,  and  a  grocer  was  looking 
for  an  assistant  in  Hoboken.  By  the  time  I  had  reached 
one  place  and  had  had  my  services  refused,  I  was  too 
late  in  getting  to  the  others.  And  always  I  was 
refused.  Why?  At  last  one  morning  a  butcher  in  the 
upper  Eighties  gave  me  the  answer  with  pungent 
frankness.  I  had  got  to  the  spot  before  any  one  else, 
and  when  I  saw  it  in  his  eye  that  he  was  about  to  pass 
me  up,  I  gathered  all  the  pluck  that  was  in  me  and 
demanded  the  reason.  He  looked  me  over  from  head 
to  foot,  and  then,  with  a  contemptuous  glance  at  my 
shabby  foreign  shoes  (the  alien's  shoes  are  his  Judas), 
he  asked  me  whether  I  supposed  he  wanted  a  greenhorn 
in  his  store.  I  pondered  that  query  for  a  long  time. 
Here,  I  thought,  was  indeed  new  light  on  America. 
Her  road  to  success  was  a  vicious  circle,  and  no  mistake. 

93 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

In  order  to  have  a  job  one  must  have  American  clothes, 
and  the  only  way  to  get  American  clothes  was  to  find 
a  job  and  earn  the  price.  Altogether  a  desperate 
situation. 

Then  my  relative  suggested  peddling.  Here  I  was 
occupying  part  of  a  bed  that  could  bring  fifty  cents  a 
week,  and  paying  nothing  for  it.  Moreover,  she  was 
giving  me  meals.  This  was  America.  Everybody 
hustled,  and  nearly  everybody  peddled.  If  I  had  some 
money  I  might  start  right  off  on  the  grand  scale  with  a 
pushcart.  But  there  were  other  ways.  There  were 
lots  of  young  fellows  from  Vaslui,  of  just  as  good 
family  as  mine,  who  sold  pretzels  in  a  basket,  or  mantles 
from  a  hand-bag — anything  they  could  find — and  paid 
for  their  board,  and  bought  clothes  for  themselves,  and 
even  saved  money.  Here,  for  instance,  was  Louis 
Carniol,  whom  everybody  at  home  had  considered  a 
ne'er-do-well — a  schlim-mezalnik.  Did  I  notice  how 
nicely  he  was  dressed?  Did  I  know  that  he  had  money 
in  the  bank?  Yes,  I  need  not  look  incredulous,  for 
only  the  week  before  he  had  sent  home  fifty  francs. 
And  there  was  Rose  Marculescu,  a  mere  girl,  and  in 
three  months  she  had  nearly  paid  for  the  steamer  ticket 
her  brother  had  sent  her.  Of  course  the  lucky  ones  and 
the  clever  ones  got  jobs.  But  what  could  a  body  do? 
In  the  land  of  Columbus  one  did  what  one  could,  and 
there  was  no  disgrace  in  doing  anything.  A  shoemaker 
was  just  as  good  in  America  as  a  doctor,  as  long  as  he 
worked  and  made  money  and  paid  for  everything. 

94 


VENTURES    AND    ADVENTURES 

I  denied  the  imputation  that  I  was  ashamed,  and 
asked  her  what  she  proposed  that  I  should  do,  con 
sidering  that  my  fifteen  cents  had  gone  for  ferry  rides. 
She  answered  that  she  proposed  to  lend  me  the  money 
for  a  start,  and  irrelevantly  quoted  the  Rumanian  adage 
about  when  thousands  are  lost  hundreds  don't  count. 
So  I  accepted  her  dollar,  and  let  her  lend  me  a  small 
brass  tray  she  had  brought  from  home;  and  in  the 
afternoon  I  went  around  to  Orchard  Street  and  invested 
my  borrowed  capital  in  two  boxes  of  chocolates. 
Monday  morning  you  might  have  seen  me  at  the  hour 
of  seven  standing  at  the  corner  of  Fourteenth  Street  and 
Fifth  Avenue,  inviting  the  crowds  that  rushed  by  to 
work  to  partake  of  my  wares.  I  was  very  enthusiastic 
in  spite  of  the  nipping  cold.  But,  oddly  enough,  no 
one  in  that  whole  rolling  sea  of  humanity  seemed  to  be 
fond  of  chocolates.  Moreover,  the  policeman  took  a 
strange  dislike  to  me  and  chased  me  from  one  corner 
to  another.  Once  a  young  American  humorist  flipped 
my  tray  in  passing,  and  nearly  succeeded  in  spill 
ing  my  entire  stock  under  the  feet  of  the  hurrying 
throng. 

However,  late  in  the  day  my  affairs  took  a  turn  for 
the  better.  Toward  nine  o'clock  the  whole  army  of 
peddlers  came  forth  into  the  daylight,  and  the  winter 
air  grew  suddenly  warm  with  friendly  babbling  and 
mutual  offerings  of  assistance.  The  mere  sight  of 
them,  with  their  variegated  equipages  and  their  motley 
goods,  was  reassuring.  There  were  peddlers  with  push- 

95 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

carts  and  peddlers  with  boxes,  peddlers  with  movable 
stands  and  peddlers  with  baskets,  peddlers  with  bundles, 
with  pails,  with  satchels  and  suit-cases  and  trunks,  with 
an  infinite  assortment  of  contrivances  designed  to 
display  the  merchandise  and  to  enthrall  the  eye.  Some 
of  the  carts  were  ornamented  with  bunting  and  colored 
paper  edging  and  Christmas  bells  and  sprays  of  holly; 
others  carried  glass  show-cases  and  feather  dusters;  a 
great  number  were  provided  with  tops  built  of  lumber  and 
oilcloth.  They  came  pouring  in  from  all  directions- 
men  with  patriarchal  faces  and  white  beards,  old  women 
draped  in  fantastic  shawls  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights, 
boys  with  piping  voices,  young  mothers  with  babes  in 
their  arms.  On  they  came,  scurrying  through  the 
congested  traffic,  dodging  vehicles,  trudging  with  their 
burdens,  laboriously  wheeling  their  heavy-laden  carts— 
these  representatives  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
making  for  their  appointed  posts  in  the  international 
exposition  that  stretched  along  Fourteenth  Street  and 
up  Sixth  Avenue  as  far  as  Twenty -third  Street.  It 
seemed  to  me,  as  I  looked  out  upon  this  vast  itinerant 
commerce,  whose  stocks  were  drawn  from  the  treasures 
of  the  East  and  the  industries  of  the  West,  that  I  was 
no  mere  detached  trafficker  engaged  in  a  despised  trade. 
I  was  a  member  of  a  great  and  honored  mercantile 
guild. 

I  found  myself  surrounded  by  friends.  An  elderly 
man  with  a  telescope  case  set  up  camp  beside  me  and 
proceeded  to  remove  therefrom,  in  the  manner  of  a 

96 


VENTURES   AND    ADVENTURES 

conjurer,  endless  packages  of  Oriental  spreads  and 
table-cloths.  As  he  drew  one  forth,  he  shook  it  gently 
out  of  its  folds,  held  it  up  to  view  with  a  pleased  ex 
pression,  made  some  queer  passes  with  his  hands,  like 
an  acrobat  about  to  ascend  a  tight-rope,  and  placed  it 
affectionately  on  his  shoulder.  I  glanced  up  at  him 
and  shied  away.  His  head  was  swathed  in  a  white 
turban,  and  with  those  laces  hanging  down  his  person 
he  had  the  air  of  some  barbarous  Eastern  priest.  The 
effect  was  heightened  by  his  swarthy  face  and  grizzly 
black  beard.  I  was  somewhat  alarmed,  and  was  about 
to  move  on,  when  he  suddenly  spoke  up  to  me  in  my 
native  tongue. 

"How  is  business?"  he  inquired. 

I  confessed  timidly  that  I  had  not  yet  made  a  sale. 
Then,  in  an  access  of  boldness  and  with  a  sinking 
suspicion  of  occult  powers  at  his  command,  I  asked  him 
how  he  had  recognized  me  for  a  Rumanian.  His  eyes 
twinkled  with  amusement  as  they  looked  meaningly 
at  my  shoes. 

" From  Vaslui,  for  a  guess,"  he  went  on.  "I  am  from 
Berlad  myself.  My  family  is  still  there.  Can't  get 
enough  together  to  bring  them  over.  I  am  an  old 
peddler — know  the  game — have  been  here  once  before, 
years  ago,  when  I  was  a  boy.  Ah,  times  are  hard. 
America  is  not  what  it  used  to  be — played  out.  Too 
many  in  the  business.  They  pamper  the  customer  and 
ruin  the  trade.  God!  if  I  had  not  been  such  a  fool,  to 
go  back  and  waste  all  those  good  years  in  Rumania, 

97 


AN   AMERICAN    IN   THE   MAKING 

serving  the  Wallachian  with  a  gun  and  a  bayonet,  I 
could  have  had  a  store  on  Fifth  Avenue  by  now.  But 
you  are  a  youngster.  It's  your  America.  I  wish  I 
were  in  your  shoes. — Nice  Syrian  laces,  lady?" 

All  this  went  over  my  head.  I  was  as  yet  too  fresh 
from  the  steerage  to  grasp  its  significance.  But  when, 
his  persuasive  arts  having  failed,  he  informed  his 
customer  that  those  Syrian  laces  were  meant  for  people 
with  money  and  not  for  dickering  paupers,  he  came 
back  to  me  with  more  definite  counsel. 

"You'll  learn,  all  right.  Never  fear.  How  much  do 
you  sell  those  chocolates  for?  All  right,  here  is  my 
penny  for  a  starter — a  saftia.  But  that  is  too  cheap. 
You'll  do  more  business  if  you  ask  five  cents.  Your 
American  likes  to  be  charged  a  stiff  price;  otherwise  he 
thinks  you  are  selling  him  trash.  Move  along;  elbow 
your  way  through  the  crowds  in  front  of  the  stores,  seek 
out  the  women  with  kids;  shove  your  tray  into  their 
faces.  Don't  be  timid.  America  likes  the  nervy  ones. 
;  This  is  the  land  where  modesty  starves.  And  yell, 
;  never  stop  yelling.  Advertising  sells  the  goods.  Here 
is  a  formula  to  begin  on:  'Candy,  ladies!  Finest  in 
America.  Only  a  nickel,  a  half-a-dime,  five  cents.' 
Go  on,  now;  try  it." 

I  did,  reluctantly  and  with  some  misgiving.  What 
would  I  do  if  those  elegantly  dressed  ladies  should 
resent  my  aggressiveness  and  call  the  dreaded  police 
man?  Moreover,  there  were  altogether  too  many 
mischievous  youngsters  in  the  throng  who  seemed  bent 


VENTURES   AND   ADVENTURES 

on  adventure,  and  I  wished  no  disaster  to  befall  me. 
So  I  moved  along  cautiously,  applying  my  friend's 
advice  only  by  degrees.  But  it  astonished  and  de 
lighted  me  to  see  how  magically  it  worked.  I  was  really 
making  sales.  Incredible  as  it  seemed,  these  people 
actually  paid  five  cents  for  every  piece  that  cost  me 
less  than  two-thirds  of  one  cent.  Once  a  customer — a 
man — gave  me  a  dime  and  refused  to  take  change,  and 
I  began  to  wonder  whether  I  could  not  raise  the  price 
to  ten  cents — whether,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  was 
any  limit  to  the  gullibility  of  my  customers. 

One  thing,  indeed,  that  impressed  me  right  early  in 
my  contact  with  the  world  outside  the  Ghetto  was  the 
almost  ludicrous  liberality  of  American  life.  Every 
one  was  sufficiently  dressed  in  the  streets  of  New  York. 
At  home  people  who  were  thought  of  as  in  comfortable 
circumstances  usually  wore  their  clothes  and  shoes 
away  past  the  patch  stage  and  thought  nothing  of  it. 
In  America  nobody,  except  the  newly  landed  and  a 
certain  recognizable  type  styled  a  bum,  wore  patched 
garments.  Then,  again,  in  Vaslui  none  but  young 
ladies  of  marriageable  age  wore  gloves;  for  any  one  else 
the  article  would  have  been  regarded  as  silly  dandyism. 
Of  course,  most  of  us  wore  worsted  mittens,  home- 
knitted,  in  cold  weather.  But  I  am  talking  of  gloves, 
a  very  different  thing  in  appearance  as  well  as  spiritual 
significance.  In  New  York  it  amused  me  not  a  little 
to  observe  that  even  teamsters  and  street  laborers  wore 
gloves  at  their  work,  to  preserve,  I  supposed,  their 

99 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

dainty  hands.  Indeed,  one  of  the  most  curious  things 
in  America  was  the  fact  that,  if  you  went  merely  by  their 
dress,  you  could  not  tell  a  bank  president  from  his 
office-boy. 

In  the  mean  time  my  first  day's  peddling  made  one 
thing  certain:  I  was  a  successful  business  man.  "Try 
ing"  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  I  began  to  hold  my  head 
high.  And  that  evening  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  going 
to  a  Rumanian  restaurant  on  Allen  Street  and  ordering 
the  first  meal  I  had  ever  paid  for  in  America.  It 
consisted  of  a  dish  of  chopped  eggplant  with  olive-oil, 
and  a  bit  of  pot-roast  with  mashed  potato  and  gravy. 
It  did  cost  ten  cents;  but  I  was  in  an  extravagant  mood 
that  night.  I  had  a  right  to  be,  for  while  I  dined  I 
reckoned  up  my  earnings  for  the  day  and  found  that 
they  were  no  less  than  seventy  cents,  not  counting  the 
chocolates  I  had  eaten  myself. 

Thenceforth  I  returned  to  my  restaurant  every  night. 
It  was  a  great  comfort,  after  a  day  spent  out  in  the  cold, 
to  go  into  a  cozy  room,  and  have  a  warm  meal,  and  hear 
my  native  Rumanian  spoken.  Now  and  then  a 
musician  would  wander  in  and  gladden  our  hearts  with 
a  touching  melody  of  home,  and  we  would  all  join  in 
until  the  tears  drowned  our  voices.  I  began  to  make 
acquaintances;  and  after  the  meal  we  would  sit  around 
at  the  tables,  discussing  America  with  her  queer  people 
and  her  queer  language.  Those  of  us  who  worked  at 
the  building  trades  and  those  who  sold  fruits  and 
vegetables  up-town  brought  back  with  them  the  most 

100 


VENTURES    AND    A 

amazing  stories  of  their  adventures  in  exile.  The 
American,  it  appeared,  was  a  spendthrift  and  a  finick. 
His  home  had  the  most  luxurious  appointments,  and 
his  pantry  was  loaded  with  fabulous  edibles.  He 
affected  a  curious  liking  for  hushed  whispers  and  silent 
footsteps.  His  women-folks  were  meticulous  cranks. 
His  language  was  a  corrupted  jargon  of  Yiddish  and 
Rumanian.  From  the  oddities  of  the  native's  life  we 
would  come  back  to  things  that  touched  us  nearer.  We 
sighed  or  bragged  over  our  business  ventures,  bestowed 
admiration  or  advice;  and  when  the  clock  that  hung 
over  the  display  of  victuals  on  the  counter  struck 
midnight  we  found  that  our  talk  had  drifted  back  to 
where  it  had  started — to  gossip  about  the  latest  arrivals 
and  the  recent  news  from  home. 

In  the  course  of  my  adventures  as  a  man  of  business 
I  was  frequently  brought  in  touch  with  school-boys, 
and  the  encounter  always  left  me  wistful  and  envious. 
Fortunate  youths!  Here  they  were,  at  such  tender 
years,  and  they  already  talked  a  very  "high"  order  of 
English — it  was  "high"  enough  to  go  over  my  head  for 
the  most  part — and  studying  profound  things  out  of 
profound  books  whose  very  titles  were  an  unfathomable 
mystery  to  me.  What  was  in  those  great  stacks  of 
books  that  they  always  carried  around  with  them?  I 
tried  to  draw  them  into  talk  in  an  effort  to  find  out;  and 
as  the  colloquy  progressed  I  grew  bold  enough  to  ask 
the  one  great  question  that  lay  nearest  my  heart. 
Were  they  all  going  to  be  doctors?  To  which  they 


AN -AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

answered  with  great  shouts  of  laughter  and  called  me 
"greeny."  Only  once  I  managed  to  draw  a  young 
gentleman  out  of  his  reserve.  "A  doctor!"  he  sneered. 
"Lord!  no.  Who  on  earth  wants  to  go  to  school  half 
his  life  and  then  fool  around  sick  people  for  the  rest  of 
it?  Not  me.  I  am  going  to  high  school  because  mother 
is  silly  and  because  I  ain't  old  enough  yet  to  get  my 
working-papers.  But  just  you  wait  until  next  year, 
and  see  how  quick  I  chuck  it  and  go  to  business." 
This  was  a  tremendous  revelation.  How  any  one  with 
the  chance  of  becoming  a  doctor  could  dream  of  wanting 
to  do  something  else  was  something  I  could  not  get 
through  my  head  at  all.  Oh,  if  only  I  had  their  luck! 

With  my  royal  ambition  constantly  before  me,  and 
the  demands  of  my  business,  learning  English  was 
becoming  a  necessity.  I  felt,  besides,  that  going  on 
living  in  America  without  knowing  the  American's 
language  was  stupid.  But  the  East  Side  offered  few 
facilities  and  plenty  of  hindrances  for  the  study.  The 
'abominations  of  English  orthography  I  mastered  early 
enough,  so  that  I  could  spell  hundreds  of  words  without 
knowing  their  meaning.  But  the  practical  use  of  the 
language  was  another  matter.  A  greenhorn  on  Riving- 
ton  Street  did  not  dare  open  his  mouth  in  English  unless 
he  wanted  to  bring  down  upon  himself  a  whole  torrent 
of  ridicule  and  critical  assistance.  The  mere  fact  that 
he  had  arrived  in  America  a  week  later  than  a  fellow- 
alien  seemed  to  justify  the  assumption  that  he  knew 
less  of  the  language,  and  East  Side  etiquette  demanded 

102 


VENTURES   AND    ADVENTURES 

that  he  should  defer  to  the  "Americanized"  and  accept 
their  corrections  without  question. 

At  first  I  was  inclined  to  be  meek  and  let  myself  be 
taught  by  my  elders  and  betters.  I  even  let  them 
laugh  at  me  when  I  spoke  in  my  native  tongue.  In 
America,  it  appeared,  it  was  against  the  rules  of  good 
breeding  to  call  things  by  their  right  names.  Certain 
articles  must  always  be  referred  to  in  English,  irrespec 
tive  of  whether  one  was  talking  Yiddish  or  Rumanian. 
But  as  soon  as  I  saw  through  their  flimsy  pretensions — 
which  did  not  require  very  long,  nor  any  special  talents 
— I  revolted.  Indeed,  I  turned  the  tables  on  my  critics, 
and  started  to  do  some  laughing  myself.  There  was  no 
scarcity  of  occasion.  My  friends  were  finding  English 
contemptibly  easy.  That  notion  of  theirs  that  it  was 
a  mixture  of  Yiddish  and  Rumanian,  although  partly 
justified,  was  yielding  some  astonishing  results.  Little 
Rumania  was  in  the  throes  of  evolving  a  new  tongue — a 
crazy-quilt  whose  prevailing  patches  were,  sure  enough, 
Yiddish  and  Rumanian,  with  here  and  there  a  sprinkling 
of  denatured  English.  They  felt  no  compunction 
against  pulling  up  an  ancient  idiom  by  the  roots  and 
transplanting  it  bodily  into  the  new  soil.  One  heard 
such  phrases  as  "I  am  going  on  a  marriage,"  "I  should 
live  so,"  "a  milky  dinner."  They  called  a  cucumber  a 
"pickle"  and  an  eggplant  a  "blue  tomato"  because  in 
Rumanian  a  pickle  was  a  sour  cucumber  and  tomatoes 
and  eggplants  were  distinguished  from  one  another 
merely  by  their  color.  All  balconies  were  designated 

8  103 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

as  fire-escapes  because  the  nearest  thing  to  a  fire-escape 
known  at  home  was  a  second-floor  balcony. 

I  found  the  language  of  America  much  harder  than 
that.  One  of  the  first  purchases  I  made  out  of  my 
peddler's  earnings  was  a  copy  of  Harkavy's  Dictionary. 
As  it  was  my  purpose  to  learn  the  whole  English  lan 
guage  and  nothing  less,  I  meant  to  start  at  the  letter  A 
and  proceed  alphabetically  right  through  to  the  end. 
That  appeared  to  me  the  surest  way  of  not  missing 
anything.  But  when  I  beheld  that  bulky  volume,  and 
found  on  the  title-page  something  about  thirty  thousand 
words,  my  enthusiasm  got  a  little  chilled.  I  had  never 
realized  that  Americans  were  so  loquacious.  Why, 
even  if  I  were  to  learn  a  hundred  words  every  day,  I 
could  hardly  hope  to  master  enough  vocabulary  for  an 
intelligent  conversation  in  less  than  three  years,  to  say 
nothing  of  studying  medicine.  Moreover,  experience 
had  already  taught  me  that  words,  even  when  perfectly 
memorized  and  pronounced,  had  an  exasperating  way 
of  turning  into  nonsense  as  soon  as  they  were  put  to 
the  practical  test.  Supposing  you  did  know  what 
"give"  meant,  or  "turn,"  and  had  managed,  in  addition, 
to  discover  the  meaning  of  such  particles  as  "up," 
"down,"  "in,"  and  the  like,  you  were  still  at  sea  as  to 
the  connotations  of  such  phrases  as  "give  in,"  "give 
up,"  "give  way,"  "turn  off,"  "turn  out,"  and  no  end 
of  others.  No  more  helpful  was  the  dictionary  in  your 
search  for  the  sense  of  such  bewildering  oddities  as 
"that  will  do"  (which  sounded  like  "dadldoo"), 

104 


VENTURES    AND    ADVENTURES 

"rushing  the  growler,"  "inc."  (seen  on  signs  in  the 
street),  and  "Dr."  (obviously  having  nothing  to  do 
with  the  thing  you  wanted  to  be).  There  must  be 
some  magic  glue  outside  the  dictionary  that  held  them 
together.  So  I  added  a  Bible  to  my  library  and  studied 
the  English  version  side  by  side  with  the  Hebrew 
original.  I  read  the  signs  on  the  streets  and  the 
legends  in  the  shop  windows,  and  in  the  evening  hunted 
up  whatever  words  I  could  remember  in  my  dictionary. 
Now  and  then  I  made  an  incursion  into  the  Evening 
Journal  But  it  required  a  gigantic  effort  of  the  will 
to  keep  up  the  grind.  The  very  fact  that  I  could 
read  the  news  in  two  or  three  other  languages  was 
a  handicap. 

In  my  adventures  with  the  outer  world  I  made  an 
other  discovery.  Bargaining  was  discouraged.  I 
stopped  in  front  of  a  grocery-store  to  buy  a  basket  of 
what  I  thought  were  plums  of  a  species  I  particularly 
liked.  The  man  asked  ten  cents;  I  offered  him  six, 
and  he  calmly  put  the  basket  back  in  its  place  and 
proceeded  to  walk  into  the  store.  I  called  him  back 
and  suggested  splitting  the  difference.  Whereupon  his 
face  assumed  a  threatening  shade  and  I  handed  over 
my  dime.  When  I  reached  home  I  discovered  that  my 
plums  were  tomatoes.  I  set  to  work  to  prepare  a  long 
and  convincing  speech  which  opened  in  the  petitionary 
vein  and  ended  in  menace.  Then  I  marched  back  to 
the  store  with  my  heart  thumping.  I  had  scarcely 
opened  my  mouth  when  the  salesman,  divining  my 


105 


AN    AMERICAN   IN    THE   MAKING 

mission,  took  the  package  out  of  my  hand  and  handed 
me  back  my  ten  cents. 

This  was  something  more  than  the  liberality  I  had 
observed  before.  It  was  a  peculiar  generous  trustful 
ness,  of  which  I  was  to  see  more  and  more  as  I  went 
on  living  in  America.  My  old  friend  Yankel  Bachman, 
for  instance,  was  employed  for  a  brief  period  as  assistant 
to  a  milk-driver,  and  it  made  me  marvel  to  hear  him 
tell  how  his  customers  left  bottles  with  money  in  them 
at  the  doors,  where  anybody  could  have  taken  them, 
and  how  he  in  turn  left  the  milk  in  the  same  places. 
Somehow  they  never  were  taken — or  at  least  he  never 
heard  of  it.  Imagine,  I  used  to  say  to  myself — imagine 
doing  business  after  that  fashion  in  Vaslui.  Once  a 
newspaper-wagon  sped  by  and  dropped  a  bundle  of 
magazines  right  at  my  feet.  I  picked  it  up  and  was 
walking  away  with  it  when  a  man  emerged  from  a 
stationery-shop  and  politely,  though  smilingly,  informed 
me  that  it  belonged  to  him.  I  gave  it  up,  of  course,  in 
confusion,  but  I  thought  that  if  that  had  happened  at 
home  the  case  would  have  gone  to  the  courts  before  the 
owner  could  have  proved  his  right  to  the  goods.  And 
we  were  honest  people  in  Vaslui;  only  our  ideas  were 
different.  This  undiscriminating  confidence  in  God  and 
man  was  a  distinctly  American  peculiarity. 

On  one  occasion,  however,  the  confidence  I  had  come 
to  feel  in  American  people  was  cruelly  abused.  I  had 
had  an  unprofitable  day  on  Fourteenth  Street  and  had 
remained  out  till  late  in  the  night.  To  forget  my 

106 


VENTURES   AND   ADVENTURES 

troubles  I  stopped  on  the  way  home  at  one  of  the 
"penny  arcades"  on  the  Bowery,  and  amused  myself 
by  looking  into  those  forerunners  of  the  movies  which 
showed  a  single  still-life  picture  free  of  charge  and  a 
dramatic  performance  as  soon  as  a  cent  was  deposited 
in  the  slot.  A  somewhat  shabby-looking  but  decidedly 
friendly  individual  approached  my  machine  and,  much 
to  my  surprise,  started  it  going  with  a  penny  of  his  own 
for  my  benefit.  I  asked  him  to  share  the  pleasure  with 
me  by  applying  an  eye  to  one  of  the  two  openings,  but 
he  declined  on  the  ground  that  he  had  already  seen 
everything  in  that  place.  This  led  up  to  his  inviting 
me  to  a  much  finer  place  farther  down  the  street  where 
the  pictures  were  of  a  superior  character.  As  we 
walked  along  he  suddenly  bent  down  and  picked  up  a 
purse.  "See  that  fat  woman  there  turning  into 
Houston  Street?"  he  asked  me.  "She  dropped  it." 
I  could  not  see  her,  but  that  was  of  no  consequence. 
Then  my  friend  proceeded  to  give  me  a  rapid  account 
of  his  misfortunes — his  dismissal  without  cause  from  a 
place  he  had  held  for  ten  years,  his  sick  wife  and  dying 
little  boy — and  ended  by  thanking  the  Lord,  before  he 
had  any  idea  whether  there  was  anything  in  the  purse 
to  be  thankful  for,  because  He  had  rescued  us — he 
could  see  that  I,  too,  was  poor — from  our  poverty. 
Finally  he  opened  the  wallet,  and  found  in  one  pocket  a 
bunch  of  keys  and  in  the  other  a  nickel  and  an  Elevated 
ticket.  With  trembling  hands  and  dilated  nostrils  he 
now  turned  to  unlock  the  center  compartment,  and  he 

107 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

heaved  an  "Ah"  of  relief  as  he  drew  forth  a  crumpled 
twenty-dollar  bill.  But  at  the  sight  of  the  tremendous 
find  his  reason  seemed  all  at  once  to  have  deserted  him; 
for  the  first  thing  he  said,  as  soon  as  he  got  back  his 
breath,  was,  "It  is  not  right,  and  it  is  dangerous.  Let 
us  go  to  the  police  station  and  give  it  up." 

I  had  a  dreadful  time,  with  my  scanty  English  and 
my  excited  nerves,  to  persuade  him  not  to  do  such  a 
foolish  thing.  "It's  ours,  is  it  not?"  I  cried.  "Besides 
the  woman  looked  rich;  she  would  not  miss  it,  and  we 
could  make  good  use  of  it."  Only  when  we  got  in 
front  of  the  Bleecker  Street  station  did  he  come  to  his 
senses.  "All  right,"  he  said.  "We'll  go  over  to  my 
sister's  house  and  I'll  get  ten  dollars  for  your  share. 
She  lives  up  on  Seventh  Street."  "Why  not  go  into 
a  store,"  I  asked,  "and  get  it  changed? "  "It's  danger 
ous,  I  tell  you;  we'll  get  caught,"  he  insisted.  "Say," 
he  cried  with  a  sudden  inspiration,  "you  say  you  are  a 
peddler.  Give  me  ten  dollars  and  you  keep  the  bill." 
But  I  did  not  have  ten  dollars.  I  only  had  seventy- 
five  cents.  He  looked  incredulous.  As  we  approached 
his  sister's  house  he  began  to  run  off.  "  Wait  a  minute," 
I  yelled.  "I  can't  let  you  take  the  money  with  you. 
How  do  I  know  you'll  come  back?"  He  gave  me  an 
injured  glance,  and  quite  justly  asked  me  why  he 
should  trust  me  when  I  had  no  faith  in  his  integrity.  I 
might  at  least  let  him  have  my  seventy-five  cents  as 
partial  security.  But  to  this  I  answered  with  a  laugh 
that  if  he  could  trust  me  with  nine  dollars  and  a  quarter 

108 


VENTURES   AND    ADVENTURES 

he  might  as  well  trust  me  with  ten  dollars.     My  logic 
seemed  to  carry  conviction.     He  turned  over  the  bill 
to  me  (but  not  the  keys  and  the  rest  of  the  find)  and  set 
off  on  a  dash  for  the  sisterly  home.     I  waited  half  an 
hour,  but  he  never  came.    The  next  day  being  Sunday, 
I  mysteriously  informed  my  cousin  that  I  was  going 
to  Coney  Island.     She  looked  astonished  and  I  grinned. 
"I  thought  you  complained  about  business  being  poor," 
she  asked.     Then  I  waved  the  bill  in  her  face  and  told 
her  the  whole  story.     "You  had  better  wait,"   she 
advised;    "it  may  be  one  of  those  American  fakes." 
About  ten  o'clock  "brother-in-law"  Couza  arrived  on 
his  weekly  visit,  and  she  asked  him  into  the  children's 
room  for  an  important  conference.     My  heart  sank  as 
I  heard  his  deep  laugh  through  the  keyhole.     It  was 
a  Confederate  bill. 

After  two  weeks  of  chocolates  I  turned  to  toys.  Suc 
cess  begets  greed,  and  even  a  dollar  a  day  will  lose  some 
of  its  first  glamour  by  monotonous  repetition.  Besides, 
the  holiday  rush  was  fast  drawing  to  a  close.  If  I  was 
to  save  up  anything  toward  a  better  day,  I  must  deal 
in  some  article  that  would  not  tempt  my  palate.  And, 
as  the  man  who  sold  me  the  new  merchandise  pointed 
out,  toys  had  various  other  advantages  over  candies. 
They  went  at  a  superior  price;  the  profit  was  greater; 
and,  whereas  chocolates  spoiled  when  kept  overnight, 
toys  could  be  returned  if  not  disposed  of.  Neverthe 
less,  when  the  season  was  over  and  I  was  left  with  some 
eight  dollars'  worth  of  sheet-metal  acrobats,  I  discovered 

109 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

that  my  man  had  changed  his  address  and  was  nowhere 
to  be  found.  That  was  the  beginning  of  my  American 
disasters  and  simultaneously  of  my  American  education. 
For  that  eight  dollars  represented  all  my  savings  for 
the  season,  not  counting  my  canceled  debt  to  Mrs. 
Segal,  and  I  was  left  to  starve  and  "try"  until  I  got 
my  first  job,  or  from  Christmas  to  the  end  of  January. 
Of  course,  I  could  have  gone  back  to  my  relatives,  now 
that  my  credit  had  proved  good,  but  my  pride  told  me 
that  it  was  better  to  walk  the  streets  after  the  tea 
houses  were  closed  than  to  be  lectured. 


PURIFICATIONS 


NO  doubt  this  was  proper  pride,  but  in  the  month 
and  a  half  that  followed  I  often  had  good  reason  to 
feel  that  the  price  I  was  made  to  pay  for  it  was  a  trifle 
extortionate.  I  had  come  to  New  York  in  search  of 
riches  and  adventure.  Well,  now,  here  at  least  was 
adventure  a-plenty,  even  if  the  riches  were  a  bit  scarce. 
To  be  sure,  the  adventures  I  had  most  craved  were  of 
quite  another  sort.  But,  having  neglected  to  specify 
in  advance,  it  was  not  my  place  to  complain  against 
Destiny  when  she  chose  to  put  the  broad  interpretation 
on  my  order  and  supplied  me  with  an  ample  stock  of  all 
the  varieties  in  her  shop.  All  the  same,  I  could  not 
for  the  life  of  me  see  any  fun  in  the  thing,  not,  at  any 
rate,  while  it  lasted.  Think  of  me  as  devoid  of  imagina 
tion  all  you  please,  the  fact  remains  that,  with  the  best 
intentions  in  the  world,  I  never  succeeded  in  tapping 
the  romance  of  my  experiences.  Going  without  meals 
two-thirds  of  the  time  was  just  as  dull  as  it  could  be; 
tramping  through  the  slushy,  wind-swept  streets  while 
the  rest  of  the  world  snuggled  and  snored  under  its 
warm  covers  was  monstrously  nasty;  and  the  callous 
ness,  the  indifference,  the  smugness  of  employers  and 


111 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

acquaintances  alike  were  both  dull  and  nasty,  and  soul- 
destroying  to  boot.  No,  I  got  precious  little  poetry 
out  of  my  adventures.  Wisdom,  perhaps — of  the 
toughening  kind.  By  the  time  my  trials  were  over  I 
had  ceased  to  be  a  boy.  I  had  become  a  man,  with  the 
disillusionment,  the  wiliness,  and,  I  fear,  the  cynicism 
of  a  man. 

I  had  thought  that  that  first  week  preceding  my 
peddling  ventures  had  exhausted  all  America's  possibili 
ties  of  hardship  and  disheartening  failure.  But  that 
was  because  I  was  a  greenhorn,  unversed  in  the  ways 
of  Columbus's  land.  It  was  only  now  that  I  was  to 
get  my  American  baptism — that  cleansing  of  the  spirit 
by  suffering  which  every  one  of  us  immigrants  must 
pass  through  to  prove  himself  worthy  of  his  adoption. 
The  population  of  Little  Rumania  was  made  up  of  two 
classes,  the  greens  and  the  yellows.  They  were  not 
stationary  castes;  every  yellow  had  once  been  a  green, 
and  every  green  was  striving  and  hoping  to  become  a 
yellow  some  day.  But  in  order  to  effect  this  coveted 
change  of  color  and  class  there  was  but  one  thing  for 
the  new-comer  to  do — he  must  be  purified.  Purification 
—that  was  what,  with  telling  aptness,  the  East  Side 
called  the  period  of  struggle,  starvation,  and  dis 
appointment  in  America,  which  was  the  lot  of  the  green. 
If  a  fellow-townsman  of  mine  chanced  to  ask  my 
cousin  and  former  landlady  whether  she  had  seen  me 
and  how  I  was  getting  on,  she  answered  apathetically 
and  as  if  it  were  only  what  one  might  expect,  "Oh,  he 

112 


PURIFICATIONS 

is  bleaching  out — getting  purified,  you  know."  People 
who  had  known  my  family  in  Vaslui  would  now  and 
then  pass  me  in  the  street  or  run  into  me  in  a  tea-house, 
and  the  dialogue  that  then  ensued  was  after  this 
fashion : 

"Working?" 

"No,  not  yet." 

"Um,  getting  properly  purified.  Oh,  well,  wait 
until  you  are  a  yellow.  You'll  be  all  right  in  America 

yet." 

And  my  friend  would  suddenly  discover  that  he  had 
important  business  in  hand  and  bid  me  a  breathless 
good-by. 

Happily  I  was  not  alone  in  my  misery.  A  large 
percentage  of  those  who  had  come  to  America  on  foot 
were,  in  a  twofold  sense,  in  the  same  shoes  as  I  was,  in 
spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  newly  formed  Rumanian 
American  Society  to  provide  for  the  comfort  and  self- 
support  of  their  compatriots.  The  dingy  hotels  on  the 
Bowery  were  filled  with  them,  and  the  communal 
kitchen  on  Broome  Street  saw  scores  of  such  of  them 
as  were  willing  to  submit  to  charity,  stand  in  line  every 
day  for  their  meal  tickets.  The  "labor  agencies"  did 
a  thriving  business  by  finding  jobs  for  them  somewhere 
in  "the  South,"  which,  however,  turned  out  exceed 
ingly  short-lived,  as  those  who  managed  to  get  back 
reported.  With  the  help  of  some  of  my  fellow-sufferers 
I  picked  up  a  variety  of  scraps  of  industrial  information; 
but  my  extreme  youth  and  my  unconquerable  timidity 

113 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

prevented  me  from  making  any  use  of  them.  There 
was  Ascher  Gold,  for  instance,  who  for  two  entire  weeks 
earned  two-fifty  a  day  by  replacing  a  certain  boiler- 
maker  who  had  suddenly  taken  it  into  his  head  to  refuse 
to  work  because  he  thought  two-fifty  a  day  not  enough ! 
Then  there  was  the  office  on  Second  Avenue  which 
sent  people  wherever  they  wanted  to  go  and  even  got 
places  for  them;  but  one  had  to  know  how  to  get 
friendly  with  its  secretary,  and  buy  him  a  cigar  or  a 
dish  of  ice-cream,  before  one  stood  any  chance  of  even 
getting  inside.  Yankel,  however,  came  and  told  me 
that  after  spending  thirty  cents  on  that  unapproachable 
gentleman  the  best  that  he  offered  to  do  for  him  was  to 
send  him  to  work  in  a  mine  at  the  other  end  of  the 
country. 

One  of  the  objections  that  father  had  had  to  my  going 
to  America  was  that  I  was  too  young  to  be  exposed  to 
the  dangers  of  a  strange  large  city,  and  at  the  time  I 
had  laughed  at  his  fears.  But  my  enforced  idleness,  I 
found,  was  leading  me  into  worse  things  than  physical 
discomfort.  For  one  thing,  the  persistent  failure  to 
find  work  has  a  curious  effect  on  the  mind.  The  victim 
begins  by  doubting  whether  he  ever  can  be  employed 
and  ends  up  by  fearing  that  he  might!  I  used  to 
approach  a  prospective  employer  with  a  kind  of  sinking 
dread  lest  he  should  take  me;  and  in  the  morning  as  I 
set  out  on  my  daily  round  I  would  say,  devoutly,  "I 
am  going  to  look  for  a  job;  Lord  prevent  that  I  should 
find  one."  In  the  solitude  of  the  night,  while  lingering 

114 


PURIFICATIONS 

in  the  shelter  of  a  doorway,  I  would  take  stock  of  my 
fix  and  steel  my  heart  with  resolution.  "How  long," 
I  would  ask  myself,  reproachfully,  "can  this  state  of 
affairs  go  on?  I  cannot  live  without  meals  forever. 
My  shoes — those  traitor  shoes  from  home — will  no 
longer  keep  out  the  snow.  Sooner  or  later  the  folks 
in  Vaslui  are  bound  to  guess  or  hear  why  I  am  ignoring 
their  requests  for  help.  And  the  more  I  put  off  getting  a 
job  the  farther  recedes  the  realization  of  my  ambition." 
The  coffee-houses  I  frequented  were  a  continual  bait. 
On  the  East  Side  respectability  mingled  freely  with  the 
underworld.  These  elegant  resorts  where  well-dressed 
shopkeepers  brought  their  bejeweled  wives  and  treated 
them  to  fat  suppers,  became,  toward  midnight,  the 
haunts  of  the  pickpocket  and  the  street-walker.  Every 
now  and  then  a  young  gentleman  with  piercing,  restless 
eyes,  faultlessly  attired  in  modish  clothes,  high  collar, 
and  patent-leather  boots,  generously  invited  me  to  share 
a  bite  with  him,  and  in  the  course  of  the  meal  painted 
me  a  dark  picture  of  the  fate  of  the  fool  who  thought 
he  could  succeed  in  America  with  the  antiquated  no 
tions  he  had  brought  with  him  from  the  old  country.  If 
I  really  wanted  to  make  money  and  bring  my  family 
to  America,  he  would  show  me  how,  just  as  he  had 
shown  others.  It  was  quite  easy,  and  the  partnership 
basis  was  half-and-half.  The  landlord  of  the  place 
made  me  a  different  proposal.  An  ambitious  young 
fellow  could  get  a  girl  to  support  him.  He  did  not 
really  have  to  marry  her;  he  would  only  pose  as  her 

115 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

husband  at  a  pinch.  But  as  I  was  either  too  stupid 
or  too  scrupulous  or  too  timid  to  avail  myself  of 
these  opportunities,  I  went  on  getting  purified,  until 
the  day  came  when  I  was  left  without  the  price  of  the 
indispensable  World.  Then  once — but  just  once — I 
was  sorely  tempted  to  beg  the  penny  of  a  likely- 
looking  stranger,  only  to  be  arrested  by  a  paralyzing 
shame  at  the  thought. 

My  parents  did,  surely  enough,  get  wind  of  the  actual 
state  of  things  before  long,  and  the  minute  detail  with 
which  they  wrote  about  it  made  me  suspect  that  the  guess 
had  been  inspired  from  this  side.  During  the  first  month 
after  my  arrival  father  never  omitted  to  give  me  an 
account  of  the  situation  at  home,  and  to  urge  me  to  be 
saving,  because  mother  and  he  were  only  waiting  for 
Paul's  discharge  from  the  army  to  follow  me  to  New 
York.  He  suggested  that  I  either  put  my  money  in 
the  savings-bank,  or  purchase  the  steamer  tickets  one 
by  one  as  funds  accumulated.  That,  he  felt,  was  the 
surest  way  to  avoid  temptations  of  extravagance.  "Do 
not  waste  your  resources,"  he  advised  once,  "on  silly 
things  like  jewelry.  There  will  be  time  enough  for 
luxuries  later  on.  At  present  your  only  thought  should 
be  for  the  reunion  of  us  all.  I  hope  that  we  may  be 
with  you  by  Easter.  Your  mother  is  not  likely  to 
stand  your  absence  very  much  longer."  Then  followed 
solicitous  warnings  against  the  pitfalls  of  the  city: 
"Remember  that  the  tavern-keeper  loves  the  drunkard, 
but  never  gives  him  his  daughter  for  a  wife." 

116 


PURIFICATIONS 

Yet  now,  in  spite  of  all  my  cheering  prevarications, 
father  suddenly  adopted  an  entirely  new  tone.  Times 
had  unaccountably  changed  for  the  better  in  Vaslui. 
Grain  was  booming.  He  could  find  use  for  my  services 
in  various  ways.  It  was  a  mistake,  as  he  had  felt  from 
the  start,  to  let  me  go  away  at  all.  He  and  mother 
were  getting  too  old  to  undertake  such  a  lengthy 
journey.  Besides,  Harry  had  got  a  new  place  in 
Constantza;  he  was  virtually  the  head  salesman,  and 
he  had  it  in  his  power  to  create  a  vacancy  for  me. 
Even  Aunt  Rebecca  had  repented  of  her  unkindness. 
She  now  was  not  only  willing  to  have  me  in  Uncle 
Pincus's  store,  she  was  even  ready  to  advance  me  the 
money  for  the  return  trip — if  I  needed  any. 

I  replied  proudly  that  I  wanted  nobody's  money  or 
patronage.  It  was  true,  I  wrote,  that  thus  far  I  had 
not  succeeded  in  saving  a  great  deal,  but  that  was 
because  I  could  not  yet  speak  English  and  had  not 
learned  a  trade.  Nevertheless,  I  was  amply  capable  of 
taking  care  of  myself.  I  was  gradually  making  my 
way.  America  was  exactly  as  Couza  had  pictured  it. 
It  was  all  right.  They  need  not  worry. 

In  a  consultation  with  my  boyhood  friend  Yankel 
I  confessed  that  I  was  tempted  to  accept  the  offers  from 
home.  I  read  him  one  of  father's  letters,  and  it  made 
his  eyes  and  his  mouth  water.  "My!  you  are  lucky," 
he  exclaimed.  His  folks,  too,  it  seemed,  had  divined 
that  all  was  not  well  with  him.  But  Monish  was  a 
stern  father,  and  what  he  had  written  was  something  to 

117 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

this  effect:  "My  dear  son,  you  have  wanted  fun. 
Very  well,  be  a  man;  stick  where  you  are,  and  maybe 
you'll  get  it,  after  all.  There  is  no  milk  and  honey 
flowing  here,  either." 

Yankel  thought  there  was.  Distance  co-operating 
with  hunger  cast  a  glowing  spell  over  the  past,  and  my 
friend,  falling  into  reminiscence,  summoned  up  a 
picture  of  home  that  set  both  our  hearts  aching.  He 
was  thinking  only  the  other  day,  he  said,  how  jolly  it 
would  be  to  be  back  in  Vaslui  at  this  very  season,  just 
for  a  little  while.  In  this  miserable  New  York  one  was 
losing  track  even  of  the  calendar.  Did  I  know  that 
last  week  was  the  Feast  of  the  Maccabees?  How  could 
any  one  know  it  in  America?  In  a  land  where  every  day 
was  some  kind  of  a  denatured  holiday — where  you 
could  eat  Sabbath  twists  on  Wednesday,  and  matzoths 
on  New- Year's — the  holidays  themselves  became  mean 
ingless  and  dull.  Besides,  the  little  things  that  made 
the  joy  of  a  feast  at  home  you  could  not  get  here  at  all. 
The  bee's- wax  tapers  and  the  dredlach  ("tops"  made  of 
metal),  where  were  they?  How,  he  wondered,  would 
they  keep  Tabernacles  in  a  tenement?  Where  was  the 
yard  to  put  up  the  structure?  Where  was  the  brook 
with  the  rushes  growing  on  its  banks  to  make  the  roof 
out  of?  And  the  Feast  of  Weeks,  you  could  not 
celebrate  that  without  fresh  green  twigs.  There  was 
no  spring  on  Rivington  Street.  There  was  not  even 
any  real  cow's  cheese  to  make  the  prescribed  pastries 
with. 

118 


PURIFICATIONS 

And  now  Purim  was  coming.  Back  there  the  boys 
who  had  not  been  such  fools  as  to  walk  to  America  were 
getting  the  costumes  ready  to  re-enact  for  the  thousandth 
time  the  mask  of  Joseph  and  Pharaoh  and  the  spectacle 
of  Esther  and  Ahasuerus.  Welvel  Tseenes  was  prob 
ably  at  that  very  moment  climbing  up  into  the  garret 
and  unearthing  his  mother's  old  purple  wrapper,  which 
in  another  week  would  be  turned  into  the  royal  robe  of 
the  King  of  the  Medes  and  the  Persians;  while  the 
handy  Yossel  Beyles  was  undoubtedly  neglecting  his 
father's  shop  on  the  Ring  and  designing  a  cardboard 
sword  for  his  majesty  and  a  colored-paper  head-dress 
for  Esther  the  queen.  Now  that  I  was  in  exile,  it  would 
be  interesting  to  know  who  was  composing  the  words 
and  coaching  the  performers.  Every  mother  in  town 
was  now  breaking  walnuts  by  the  thousand  and  crush 
ing  the  kernels  in  the  big  brass  mortar  and  making 
them  into  crisp  strudels  that  crumble  in  your  mouth. 
Whole  jars  of  plum-butter  are  being  emptied  into  a 
maple  bowl  and  put  in  small  dabs  into  the  three-cornered 
Haman-pockets.  And  every  youngster  who  is  not  too 
awkward  to  be  intrusted  with  fine  glassware  will  soon 
be  going  about  delivering  gifts  of  confectionery  and 
red  wine  to  his  parents'  relatives  and  friends,  in  accord 
ance  with  the  injunction  contained  at  the  end  of  the 
Book  of  Esther. 

Did  I  remember  how  last  year  he  and  I  decided  to 
depart  from  the  traditional  masques  and  to  make  the 
gang  sit  up  and  take  notice  by  pulling  off  an  entirely 

9  119 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

new  stunt?  How  we  stole  into  the  parlor  of  his  home 
and  ransacked  his  eldest  brother's  cabinet  until  we 
found  the  two  pistols  that  Judah  always  carried  with 
him  when  he  went  about  the  country;  and  how  I 
found  difficulty  in  cocking  the  larger  one,  so  that  he 
tried  it  with  all  his  might,  and  the  trigger  flew  back 
with  a  deafening  noise  (happily  all  the  windows  were 
shut  and  no  one  heard  it)  and  he  thought  he  had  shot 
me,  and  made  a  careful  examination  of  my  person,  which 
resulted  in  the  discovery  that  he  had  merely  blown 
away  half  the  left  skirt  of  my  new  coat;  and  I  had  to 
go  about  the  rest  of  that  Saturday  with  my  left  hand  in 
my  breeches  pocket  to  cover  up  the  disaster,  and  that 
evening  insisted  on  putting  my  Sabbath  costume  into 
the  clothes-chest  myself,  and  on  the  following  Saturday 
raised  an  unblushing  cry  that  the  rats  had  got  into  my 
things. 

Four  weeks  after  Purina  was  the  Feast  of  Matzoths; 
and  although  this  was  only  midwinter  there  must 
already  be  a  Paschal  note  in  the  air  of  Vaslui.  The 
fatted  geese  were  being  killed  to  furnish  forth  the 
shortening  for  the  glorious  rich  puddings  and  the  fat 
for  the  fried  matzoths  and  the  innumerable  pancakes. 
He  could  almost  see  in  his  mind's  eye  the  cheerful 
activity:  Early  in  the  morning  his  little  brother  was 
driving  the  team  with  the  roan  down  to  the  butcher's, 
a  dozen  or  so  of  the  heavy,  snow-white  birds  lying  with 
their  feet  tied  in  the  back  of  the  cart;  as  soon  as  he 

returned  his  mother  and  sisters  flew  into  their  aprons 

120 


PURIFICATIONS 

and  proceeded  to  fill  two  separate  sacks  with  feathers 
and  down,  which  were  to  be  turned  later  into  cushions — 
important  additions  to  the  girls'  trousseaux;  then  the 
carcasses  were  dressed  and  hung  in  the  chimney  to  be 
cured  into  pastrama;  and  for  the  rest  of  the  month  an 
unending  succession  of  palatable  goose-liver  patties  and 
dumplings  created  out  of  the  driblets  and  giblets. 

Ah,  that  week  before  the  Passover!  Was  there 
anything  in  America  with  all  her  wealth  and  freedom 
to  match  that?  Particularly  if  one  was  a  boy.  Who 
could  enumerate  all  its  joys,  even  from  this  appalling 
distance?  The  busy  hum  of  house-cleaning;  the 
bringing  in  of  the  huge  bale  of  crisp,  new,  unleavened 
cakes;  the  putting  up  of  the  all-year's  dishes  and  the 
unpacking  of  the  holiday  dishes  out  of  the  box  where 
they  had  remained  since  the  last  time;  the  rediscovery 
of  half -forgotten  pet  cups  and  glasses;  the  cleansing 
with  red-hot  stones  and  scalding  water  of  the  silver 
ware,  a  task  always  performed  by  the  boys  in  a  pit  dug 
somewhere  in  the  back  yard;  the  shaking  out  of  all 
pockets  lest  a  crumb  of  leavened  bread  should  inad 
vertently  undo  an  entire  month's  work;  the  last  meal 
at  noon  on  the  day  before  the  festive  week,  which  must 
be  eaten  out  of  doors;  the  ceremonial  sweeping  away 
of  the  last  traces  of  non-paschal  food;  and  lastly  the 
brief  service  at  the  temple  attended  only  by  father  and 
sons,  the  welcoming  by  the  women-folks  dressed  in 
spotless  white;  the  very  lengthy  home  service  alter 
nating  with  the  courses  of  the  banquet,  the  symbolism 

121 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

of  the  Four  Questions,  the  Invitation  to  the  Poor  and 
Hungry,  and  the  Glass  for  Elijah — Yankel  smacked  his 
lips  and  sighed  as  he  pictured  it  all. 

He  found  a  romantic  word  even  for  the  heathen 
customs  of  the  peasantry,  and  discovered  a  hitherto 
unseen  bright  side  in  the  very  tyranny  of  the  Rumanian 
Government.  He  recalled  that  we  had  just  recently 
left  behind  the  first  of  January,  and  reminded  me  of  the 
huge  ice  cross  which  always  appeared  on  that  morning 
in  the  principal  square  of  Vaslui,  to  which  the  peasants 
bowed  and  kneeled  when  they  came  in  from  the  country 
while  the  regimental  band  played  beautiful,  solemn  airs. 
The  Christian  Easter,  if  it  did  not  come  at  the  same 
time  as  the  Passover,  was  almost  like  a  feast  of  our  own. 
To  be  sure,  we  were  not  allowed  to  eat  the  colored  eggs, 
but  we  could  still  play  "touch"  with  them;  and  as  for 
the  cake  called  cozonac  no  amount  of  prohibition 
sufficed  to  prevent  us  from  sharing  it  with  our  young 
neighbors.  Was  not  the  search  for  the  cross  in  the 
churchyards  on  the  night  before  Easter  a  beautiful 
ceremony,  after  all?  And  the  joyous  ringing  of  bells 
when  it  was  at  last  found  by  the  priest  who  had  hidden 
it?  And  the  Easter  swing  which  even  our  mothers 
enjoyed  riding  in?  He  used  to  resent  it  bitterly  when 
the  police  came  and  closed  our  private  schools  in  mid 
summer;  but  now  as  he  looked  back  to  it  he  could  see 
that  it  was  really  a  kindness,  at  least  to  us  boys.  It 
enabled  us  to  enjoy  the  adventure  of  being  taught 
secretly  in  his  father's  or  my  father's  shed;  and,  what 

122 


PURIFICATIONS 

is  more,  the  lessons  had  necessarily  to  be  shortened, 
which  gave  us  time  to  go  swimming  and  to  take  the 
calf  out  to  pasture. 

So  Yankel  advised  me  not  to  be  a  fool  a  second  time 
and  take  a  good  thing  when  it  was  offered  me.  I  was 
debating  whether  he  was  right,  and  asking  myself 
whether,  after  living  in  the  large  world  for  a  little  time, 
I  could  again  feel  at  home  in  a  place  which  had  no 
street  cars,  when  suddenly — it  was  now  the  last  week 
in  January — my  nightmare  cleared  and  I  got  my  first 
job.  For  that,  thanks  to  Couza.  Couza  had  hitherto 
shown  no  inclination  to  interest  himself  in  my  behalf, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  was  his  preaching  and  example 
that  had  brought  me  to  New  York.  When,  however, 
word  reached  him  of  my  purifications  his  heart  was 
touched,  and  within  a  day  or  two  he  left  word  at  my  old 
Rivington  Street  address  that  he  had  found  me  a  place 
in  a  barroom  on  Division  Street.  I  have  since  that  day 
received  telegrams  notifying  me  of  university  appoint 
ments,  and  I  have  been  very  glad  to  get  them,  too,  but 
no  message  of  that  kind  has  ever  since  struck  me  dumb 
with  joy.  The  news  of  that  first  job,  back  in  1901, 
did. 


XI 

THE   ETHICS   OF  THE  BAR 

THEY  took  me.  There  were  a  number  of  regulation 
questions — about  my  family,  how  long  I  had  been 
in  America,  what  I  had  done  before — and  then  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Weiss  exchanged  an  approving  glance,  and  Mr. 
Weiss  told  me  that  I  would  do.  He  at  once  asked  me 
to  remove  my  coat  and  get  into  a  white  apron.  Then 
he  conducted  me  behind  the  beautiful  oak  counter— 
which  I  was  soon  to  be  informed  was  called  a  bar — and 
initiated  me  into  the  mysteries  of  the  beer-taps.  "  Read 
this,"  he  said,  suddenly,  and  held  up  a  bottle.  "Fine! 
Did  you  say  you  have  been  here  less  than  two  months?  " 
he  asked,  incredulously.  I  could  see  that  I  had  made 
an  impression,  that  he  was  getting  more  and  more 
pleased  with  me. 

For  my  own  part,  I  found  the  saloon  a  paradise,  at 
least  for  a  time.  I  got  three  meals  every  day  and  a 
clean  bed  every  night,  and  three  dollars  a  month,  just 
like  that,  if  you  please,  to  do  what  I  liked  with.  It  was 
oppressive  to  have  so  much  money.  During  the 
middle  of  the  afternoon,  after  I  got  through  washing 
the  windows,  and  polishing  the  brass  fittings,  and 
preparing  the  free  lunch,  and  there  was  nothing  to  do 

124 


THE    ETHICS    OF    THE    BAR 

but  to  wait  for  the  evening  trade,  I  would  sit  down  at 
the  far  end  of  the  bar  next  to  the  window  and  do 
intricate  problems  in  fractions,  in  an  effort  to  calculate 
by  just  how  much  my  fortune  had  increased  since  the 
day  before.  Then  the  figures  would  puff  and  swell  into 
fantastic  sums  as  I  went  on  to  multiply  them  by  five  in 
order  to  obtain  their  equivalents  in  Rumanian  francs 
and  bani.  You  may  laugh  at  this  if  you  like,  but  it 
was  I  who  had  a  new  suit  and  new  shoes  and  a  derby 
hat  when  Easter  came.  The  derby  was  my  first,  and 
it  played  queer  tricks  with  my  face;  but  I  was  proud  of 
it,  all  the  same,  because  it  made  me  look  like  a  man. 

My  employers,  being  a  childless  couple,  in  a  manner 
adopted  me  and  father-and-mothered  me.  Mrs.  Weiss 

"The  Mrs.,"  as  I  was  taught  to  call  her — gave  me 
some  good  clothes  which  her  brother  had  cast  off,  and 
fed  me  on  the  choicest.  In  leisure  moments  she  took 
occasion  to  continue  my  education  by  little  hints  on 
the  importance  of  courtesy  in  America,  on  the  most 
effective  style  of  dressing  the  hair  for  a  young  gentleman 
in  my  position,  on  the  wisdom  of  thrift,  and,  in  general, 
on  how  to  pass  from  the  green  into  the  yellow  state  in 
the  shortest  possible  time. 

Mr.  Weiss,  too,  was  kind  and  helpful,  except  when  he 
was  in  his  cups,  which,  fortunately,  happened  regularly 
on  Saturday  nights  only,  so  that  an  observant  young 
man  need  not  be  too  much  in  the  way  when  his  master 
was  irritable.  From  him  I  first  learned  that  honesty, 
particularly  with  an  employer,  is  the  best  policy,  that 

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AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

bar-men  never  drink  (except  at  a  customer's  invitation, 
which  is  another  story  and  is  governed  by  a  special 
ethical  rule),  and  that  patience  with  a  liberally  spending 
customer,  even  when  he  says  and  does  unpleasant 
things,  is  a  virtue  that  is  its  own  reward.  He  advised 
me  to  let  him  keep  my  wages  for  me  instead  of  exposing 
them  to  the  risks  of  pickpockets  and  loss,  and  assured 
me  that  I  need  not  worry  over  the  trifling  sum  in  such 
well-to-do  hands  as  his,  and  that  I  could  have  the  whole 
amount  owing  to  me  at  any  time  when  I  should  need  it 
or  wish  to  quit  his  employ.  He  invariably  paid  my 
bath  and  hair-cutting  bill  out  of  his  own  pocket.  On 
Sunday  mornings  he  let  me  sleep  until  seven  and  opened 
the  shop  himself.  He  even  offered  me  assistance  in 
English,  but  of  this  I  did  not  avail  myself  because  I 
noticed  that  he  always  referred  to  Mrs.  Weiss  as  "he." 

But  I  was  an  ungrateful  soul,  for  I  soon  began  to 
detect  the  flaws  in  my  paradise.  Just  before  the 
Passover  my  employer  filled  his  windows  with  announce 
ments  to  the  effect  that  he  had  received  a  large  stock  of 
kosher  liquids  for  the  holiday,  but  shortly  afterward  the 
goods  arrived  from  the  distillery  and  I  lent  a  hand  in 
mixing  them,  and  discovered  to  my  horror  that  the 
chief  ingredient  was  grain-alcohol,  which  was,  ritually 
speaking,  poison.  Several  times  I  was  humiliated  by  a 
ridiculous  fashion  they  had  of  testing  my  honesty, 
which  consisted  in  leaving  a  quarter  or  half  a  dollar 
near  my  bed,  and  then  watching  the  next  day  to  see 
whether  I  would  return  it.  The  pair  quarreled  scandal- 

126 


THE    ETHICS    OF    THE    BAR 

ously  and  interminably;  and  when  their  squabbles 
began  to  degenerate  into  downright  brawls,  I  hoped 
and  prayed  that  I  might  find  another  job. 

The  saloon  also  offered  ample  opportunity  for  an 
adolescent,  impressionable  youth  to  go  to  the  dogs,  and 
I  had  to  hold  on  very  tenaciously  to  my  parents'  trust 
in  me  to  dodge  them  successfully.  The  "Family 
Entrance"  admitted  a  constant  stream  of  shady 
female  characters  to  whose  thirst  I  must  minister,  and 
who,  if  they  had  not  inspired  me  with  a  physical 
repulsion,  might  have  become  a  degrading  temptation. 
The  treating  system  was  a  more  immediate  danger. 
My  employer  constantly  impressed  it  upon  me  that  it 
was  my  duty  to  his  firm  to  accept  every  treat  that  was 
offered  me.  It  pleased  the  customer,  he  explained,  and 
it  increased  the  sales.  But  I  had  not  yet  learned  to 
like  beer — at  home  the  commonalty  drank  wine  and 
only  the  elegant  rich  indulged  in  beer — and  I  detested 
whisky.  Therefore,  when  a  certain  German  brick 
layer  foreman,  who  was  running  up  a  big  bill  in  our  place 
by  treating  every  one  in  sight,  insisted  on  my  participat 
ing  in  all  his  revels,  I  suggested  to  him  one  day  that  I 
would  appreciate  his  generosity  in  some  more  solid 
form.  He  said,  "All  right,"  and  reported  my  suggestion 
to  Mr.  Weiss.  Thereupon  followed  a  terrific  fuss,  in 
which  Mrs.  Weiss  took  sides  with  me,  declaring,  in  the 
customer's  face,  that  she  would  not  allow  any  one  to 
corrupt  a  young  boy  intrusted  to  her  care  by  filling 
him  with  liquor  that  no  one  was  paying  for.  I 

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AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

thought  Mrs.  Weiss  was  a  brick,  and  told  her  so  re 
spectfully. 

And  yet,  for  all  its  shortcomings  and  unpleasantness 
and  dangers,  I  would  not  have  you  carry  away  the 
impression  that  the  part  played  by  the  saloon  in  my 
evolution  was  merely  harmful  or  negative.  Quite  the 
contrary.  The  lessons  I  learned  while  standing  behind 
the  bar  or  while  pouring  out  miscellaneous  drinks  to  the 
people  at  the  card-tables  have  instilled  into  me  more  of 
the  rich  wisdom  of  life  than  I  got  out  of  all  the  labeled 
and  classified  knowledge  imparted  to  me  afterward  in 
my  three  universities — and  this  is  no  dubious  praise 
for  the  universities.  For  if  a  young  fellow  will  go  to 
perdition  at  the  mere  sight  of  evil,  the  probabilities  are 
that,  there  was  not  very  much  worth  saving  in  him  to 
begin  with.  But  if  he  holds  himself  erect  and  comes 
through  the  mire  unsoiled,  I  warrant  you  that  he  will 
prove  the  better  for  his  experience.  Many  a  man  more 
fortunately  surrounded  (as  the  phrase  goes)  in  his 
youth  than  I  was  has,  in  later  life,  sought  to  round  out 
his  knowledge  of  mankind  and  to  deepen  his  sympathies 
by  a  voluntary  descent  into  the  maelstrom  of  the  slums. 
I  hope  that  such  efforts  are  properly  rewarded,  but  I 
confess  to  a  mistrust  in  the  efficacy  of  the  method.  The 
palpitating  facts  of  life  cannot,  I  am  afraid,  be  got  at 
through  the  resolves  of  middle  age.  Youth  is  the  time 
for  adventuring,  and  chance  necessity  is  a  better 
cicerone  through  the  ins  and  outs  and  the  ups  and  downs 
of  existence  than  deliberate  intent.  What  a  young 

128 


THE    ETHICS    OF    THE    BAR 

man  learns  by  hard  knocks  in  his  teens  will  quicken 
his  senses  and  enrich  his  heart  to  better  purpose  than 
any  amount  of  shrewd  jottings  in  a  shimmer's  note 
book. 

A  barroom — even  an  East  Side  barroom — is  not,  as 
some  good  people  suppose,  a  mere  hang-out  for  the 
indolent  and  the  degenerate.     It  is,  whether  you  like 
it  or  not,  one  of  the  central  meeting-places  of  humanity. 
It  is  an  institution  where  all  the  classes  congregate  in  all 
their  moods — the  bestial  and  the  generous,  the  morose 
and  the  convivial.     Thither  the  laborer  may  escape 
from   his   shrewish   wife   when   she   mates   his   home 
unbearable;   but  thither  also  the  merchant  will  resort 
with  his  customer  when  both  are  jovial  over  a  particu 
larly  satisfactory  bargain.     A  bum  will  shuffle  in  to 
dry  his  rags  by  the  stove  or  to  snatch  a  morsel  from 
the  free-lunch  counter,  and  before  departing  will  give 
you  an  invaluable  glimpse  into  his  sad  history  and  his 
cheerful   philosophy.     The   next   moment   a   surgeon, 
returning  from  a  successful  operation,  will  toss  you  a 
quarter  for  a  glass  of  vichy,  and  leave  you  gaping  in 
idle  wonderment  at  the  incalculable  wealth  that  a  man 
who  can  so  lightly  do  such  a  thing  must  have  in  reserve. 
At  the  noon-hour,  a  gang  of  workmen  from  a  near-by 
"job"  will  trudge  in  in  their  heavy  boots  and  grimy 
overalls  to  devour  a  plate  of  free  soup  and  innumerable 
hunks  of  bread  with  their  schooner  of  beer,  and  to  teach 
you  the  wholesome  moral  that  good  digestion  attends 
on  honest  toil.    And  if  your  mind  is  built  to  receive 

129 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

impressions,  and  if  your  heart  is  attuned  to  beat  in 
harmony  with  other  human  hearts,  your  apprenticeship 
in  a  saloon  will  serve  for  as  good  a  start  toward  a  well- 
rounded  education  as  you  could  desire. 

It  was  in  the  saloon — or,  at  least,  in  what  I  might 
call  the  extension  department  of  it — that  my  eyes  were 
first  opened  to  the  true  meaning  of  American  democracy 
and  to  my  own  opportunity  in  the  midst  of  it.  I  should 
blush  for  my  ingratitude  if  I  did  not,  in  recounting  the 
influences  that  helped  to  make  me  an  American,  allude, 
at  least  en  masse,  to  the  hundreds  of  my  nameless  friends 
who  assisted  me  forward  in  the  general  direction  of  my 
goal.  In  particular  I  must  mention  the  wife  of  a 
physician  in  the  Bronx  to  whom  my  employer  one  night 
sent  me  to  deliver  an  order.  She  fell  into  conversation 
with  me,  and  then,  without  warning,  looked  up  at  me 
and  exclaimed: 

"Why,  my  dear  boy,  this  is  no  occupation  for  you. 
You  must  look  for  something  better." 

I  ought  to  have  been  flattered,  but  in  my  confusion 
I  could  only  pluck  nervously  at  my  cap:  "It's  all 
right.  I  like  my  work,  and  it  pays  fine." 

"Yes,"  she  insisted,  "but  haven't  you  any  higher 
ambition?" 

"Of  course,"  I  blurted  out;  "I  want  to  be  a  doctor." 

"I  thought  so,"  she  said,  with  satisfaction.  "They 
all  do.  Well,  you  will  be,"  she  added,  with  the  air  of 
a  divinity  granting  a  mortal's  wish,  "I  know.  My  hus 
band  was  a  poor  immigrant  boy  once,  and  now  he  is  a 

130 


THE    ETHICS    OF    THE    BAR 

doctor.  Do  you  know  why?  Because  he  was  ambi 
tious  and  discontented." 

These  were  strange  and  inspiring  words.  Hitherto 
I  had  been  piously  following  my  parents'  injunction  to 
obey  my  master  and  to  be  thankful  for  whatever  God 
gave  me.  I  had  not  thought  of  discontent  as  a  virtue. 
Now  suddenly  it  dawned  upon  me  that  if  I  was  ever 
to  realize  my  father's  dream  I  must  follow  a  course 
directly  opposed  to  the  one  he  had  outlined  for  me.  As 
I  looked  about  me  I  became  aware  that  discontent 
with  fortune's  favors  was  the  order  of  life  and  the  rule 
of  progress.  On  the  East  Side,  I  observed,  there  were 
no  classes.  Men  were  engaged  in  given  lines  of  work 
or  business.  But  their  occupations  were  not  permanent 
things.  They  did  not  chain  them  down  to  any  definite 
place  in  the  scheme  of  existence.  What  a  man  did  in 
no  way  determined  his  worth  or  circumscribed  his 
ambitions.  Peddling  and  hawking  and  the  sewing- 
machine  were  just  so  many  rungs  in  the  ladder.  A 
dingy  apartment  in  the  tenement  was  merely  a  stage  in 
the  march  toward  a  home  in  Brownsville  or  a  shop  in 
the  Bronx.  The  earth  was  young  and  fresh  from  the 
hand  of  the  Maker,  and  as  yet  undivided  among  His 
children.  That  was  another  distinctive  superiority  of 
America  over  Rumania. 

From  that  night  on  my  hope  to  get  into  other  work 
turned  into  determination,  and  at  Easter  an  incident 
occurred  which  promised  to  open  the  way.  In  the  three 
months  that  I  had  been  in  the  saloon  I  had  never  had 

131 


AN   AMERICAN    IN   THE    MAKING 

a  day  to  myself.  I  had  been  too  well  contented  to  ask 
for  it.  But  when  my  new  clothes  came  I  must  go  and 
show  them  to  my  friends.  Mrs.  Weiss  thought  so, 
too;  and  between  us  we  persuaded  Mr.  Weiss  to  let  me 
off  for  the  afternoon  and  evening  of  Easter  Day. 
Among  the  relatives  and  friends  whom  I  visited  that 
day  I  met  a  cousin  of  mine  who  worked  at  shirts  as  a 
collar-maker.  He  opened  my  eyes  to  the  lay  of  things. 
Here  I  was  working  day  and  night  for  three  dollars  a 
month,  while  he  was  earning  six  and  often  seven  dollars 
in  a  single  week,  and  he  had  his  evenings  to  go  to  the 
Rumanian  restaurants  and  tea-houses.  I  wondered 
whether  I  could  become  a  shirt-maker.  My  cousin 
thought  so,  and  promised  to  watch  for  an  opening. 

I  passed  a  restless  and  discontented  month  before 
my  opportunity  came.  Then  a  firm  on  Walker  Street 
offered  to  teach  me  sleeving,  on  condition  that  I  work 
for  two  weeks  without  pay.  I  had  a  month's  wages 
coming  to  me,  so  I  felt  that  I  could  manage  it;  but  when 
I  timidly  announced  my  purpose  to  Mr.  Weiss — in  my 
excitement  I  forgot  that  it  was  the  fateful  Saturday 
night — he  flew  off  the  handle  and  refused  to  pay  up. 
Even  Mrs.  Weiss  was  against  me  this  time.  She 
declared  me  a  fool  for  leaving  a  good  home  to  go  to  the 
sweat-shop  (the  very  argument  I  have  since  employed 
with  domestic  servants),  and  revealed  an  ambition  she 
had  been  cherishing  for  some  time  of  setting  me  up  in 
a  saloon  of  my  own  when  I  had  become  sufficiently 
Americanized.  She  prophesied  that  if  I  did  not  come 


THE    ETHICS    OF    THE    BAR 

to  my  senses  at  the  very  first  sight  of  a  shop,  I  would 
never  leave  it  at  all.     "Once  an  operator  always  an 
operator,"  she  reminded  me.   Grocers'  assistants  worked 
their  way  up  to  grocery-stores,  tap-boys  became  saloon 
keepers,  peddlers  and  clerks  attained  to  businesses  of 
their  own,  but  a  sweat-shop  hand  contracted  consump 
tion  or  socialism  and  never  rose  to  anything  better. 
The  operative's  lean  years  always  swallowed  up  his  fat 
ones.  As  long  as  I  worked  I  might  earn  a  little  more  than 
I  was  getting  in  the  saloon— still,  she  was  ready  to  give 
me  a  raise— but  I  would  find  saving  quite  impossible  once 
I  began  to  pay  for  every  little  thing  out  of  my  own  pocket ; 
and  when  the  "  slack  "  came  I  would  starve  as  thoroughly 
as  ever  I  did  when  I  was  a  greenhorn  and  before  she  saved 
my  life  by  taking  me  off  the  streets.    No  doubt  I  had  for 
gotten  those  miserable  days,  now  that  prosperity  had 
come  to  me  through  her;    but  she  remembered  very 
distinctly    that    first    day   when   I  gluttonously    de 
voured  potatoes  like    cheese    dainties,    and    she  was 
ashamed  to  let  customers  see  me  until  she  had  found 
me  some  clothes. 

My  benefactor,  Couza,  happening  to  drop  in,  as  he 
often  did,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Weiss  at  once  appealed  the 
case  to  him.  Whereupon  he  settled  himself  into  a  chair 
by  one  of  the  tables  and,  while  sipping  a  schooner  of 
beer,  proceeded  to  give  me  a  sound  lecture  on  my 
unethical  conduct.  My  ingratitude  to  my  employers 
and  to  him,  he  found,  was  simply  monstrous.  I  ought 
to  be  ashamed  for  even  asking  them  to  pay  me  after  the 


133 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

return  I  was  making  them  for  their  parental  kindness. 
Was  I  aware  that  the  very  clothes  I  was  wearing  were 
theirs,  and  that  they  had  tried  to  educate  me  into  an 
American  and  a  business  man?  As  for  the  sweat-shop, 
he  would  not  even  discuss  that.  He  could  only  think 
pityingly  of  my  poor  father  and  mother.  They  were 
decent,  respectable  people.  If  they  had  known  that 
their  favorite  little  son,  on  whom  they  were  placing 
such  high  hopes,  would  ally  himself  with  the  outcast, 
the  vulgar,  the  unambitious,  the  ungodly,  they  would 
never  have  consented  to  my  emigration.  And  if  they 
were  to  hear  of  it  now — as  they  were  certainly  going  to— 
it  would  break  their  hearts  and  they  would  disown  me. 

Heaven  alone  knows  what  they  hoped  to  achieve  by 
all  this  grilling,  unless  it  was  to  do  violence  to  my 
feelings,  in  which  case  they  succeeded  amply.  But  as 
far  as  gaining  any  result  for  themselves  was  concerned 
it  could  do  no  possible  good.  A  month  ago  a  raise  of 
a  dollar  might  have  made  me  hesitate  and  consider. 
But  now  I  had  bettered  Couza's  own  instruction.  I 
had  found  the  America  he  had  seen  in  a  dream.  Even 
shirt-making  with  all  its  promise  of  freedom  and  money 
was  but  a  stepping-stone.  I  was  looking  away  beyond 
to  my  destiny  dawning  on  the  horizon — the  golden 
destiny  of  my  childhood.  I  had  heard  the  tap  of 
Opportunity  on  my  door,  and  I  was  hurrying  to  answer 
the  call. 


PART   III 
THE  EDUCATION  OF  AN  AMERICAN 


XII 

SHIRTS   AND   PHILOSOPHY 

ON  the  whole,  I  take  it,  the  foreign  colony  in  our 
larger  cities  is  a  little  unfavorably  regarded  by  the 
conventional  enthusiasts  for  Americanization.     These 
kindly  ladies  and  gentlemen  appear  to  assume  that  the 
trick  of  turning  American  is  some  kind  of  an  affair  of  a 
rubber  stamp  and  an  oath  of  allegiance  and  bath-tubs. 
It  is  quite  simple.     You  go  down  there,  to  the  East 
Side,  or  Little  Italy,  or  Little  Poland,  and  you  establish 
a  settlement  and  deliver  lectures  and  furnish  them  a 
pointed  example,  and  behold!  the  fog  lifts,  and  before 
your  eyes  stands  the  new-born  American.     The  sooner 
this  effective  performance  is  accomplished  the  better, 
for  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  immigrant  invariably  hails 
from   an   inferior   world,    with   queer   notions   about 
manners  and  the  use  of  soap  and  fresh  air  and  constitu 
tions,  and  if  he  is  long  left  to  himself  and  his  fellows  he 
will  settle  down  to  this  pestiferous  imported  life  of  his 
and  never  become  one  of  us  at  all.     He  will  become  a 
confirmed  alien,  a  dangerous,  disruptive  element. 

Into   this   complacent   view   the   patent   fact   that 
Americanism  is  a  compromise  does  not  enter.     It  is 

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AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

quite  overlooked  that  the  adoptive  American  has  always 
been  and  will  always  remain  a  composite  American. 
My  good  friends  are  unwilling  to  see  that  the  alien  has 
as  much  to  teach  as  to  learn,  that  his  readjustment  is 
inevitably  a  matter  of  give  and  take,  and  that  he  only 
begins  to  feel  at  home  in  this  new  country  when  he  has 
succeeded  in  blending  his  own  culture  and  ideas  and 
mode  of  life  with  those  of  the  people  that  came  here 
before  him.  Your  self-complacent  native  takes  stock 
of  the  Americanized  alien  and  cries,  delightedly,  "See 
how  America  has  changed  him!"  But  I  suppose  he 
would  be  greatly  astonished  if  the  immigrant  were  to 
answer,  with  equal  truth,  "Look  how  I  have  changed 
America!"  Americans  can  nowise  be  persuaded  that, 
if  there  is  to  be  any  readjustment,  it  must  come  from 
this  sort  of  mutual  reaction;  and  they  will  simply 
laugh  at  you  if  you  tell  them  that  the  foreign  colony, 
far  from  being  a  danger,  is  about  the  only  natural  agency 
by  which  the  process  can  be  effected. 

Now,  if  places  like  the  East  Side  are  looked  at 
askance,  how  very  little  justice  could  one  expect  toward 
the  institution  of  the  sweat-shop?  That,  surely,  is  a 
veritable  hotbed  of  un- Americanism.  When  my  native 
friends,  who  never  weary  of  the  topic,  ask  me  what 
influences  I  account  as  the  most  vital  in  making  an 
American  of  me,  and  when,  in  a  sincere  endeavor  to  be 
enlightening,  I  answer  them  that  it  is  a  toss-up  between 
the  college  and  the  sweat-shop,  they  smile  and  say  that 
I  am  making  paradoxes.  Of  course,  they  admit,  in  a 

138 


SHIRTS   AND    PHILOSOPHY 

negative  kind  of  way,  the  slums  may  perhaps  arouse  a 
craving  for  a  broader  and  a  fuller  life,  just  as  imprison 
ment  develops  a  passionate  love  of  freedom,  or  as  a 
crabbed,  bigoted  religious  parent  may  drive  a  youngster 
to  atheism.  But  how  such  a  place  can  possibly  foster 
any  idealism  in  a  direct  way,  or  itself  become  a  bridge 
between  ignorance  and  intelligence,  between  slavery  and 
independence,  in  short  between  culture  and  stagna 
tion,  is  more  than  they  can  understand.  They  think 
of  the  sweat-shop  as  all  dark  and  poverty-ridden  and 
brutalized. 

The  East  Side  itself,  I  may  add — or,  at  any  rate,  the 
forward-looking,  practical  layer  of  it — holds  no  ex 
aggerated  opinion  about  the  sewing-machine  and  the 
flat-iron,  as  Mrs.  Weiss's  convictions  on  the  subject 
may  serve  to  prove.  Little  Rumania,  indeed,  as  a 
civilization,  entertained  an  instinctive  aversion  to  the 
industrial  life.  My  former  employers  and  their  dis 
tinguished  patron,  the  big-hearted  Couza,  whatever 
their  ulterior  motives  might  be  in  attempting  to  deter 
me  from  my  course,  really  spoke  from  the  depths  of 
their  souls  when  they  denounced  the  sweat-shop. 
Almost  everybody  I  knew  warned  me  against  it.  Even 
my  erstwhile  landlady,  Mrs.  Segal,  declared  that  she  had 
never  approved  of  Cousin  Aby's  collar-making,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  came  from  the  lesser  branch  of  the 
family  and  had  never  received  the  fine  schooling  and 
home-training  that  we  of  the  Vaslui  clan  had  (Aby  be 
ing  a  native  of  Galatz).  What,  she  asked  me,  would 

139 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

become  of  our  splendid  tradition  as  a  family  of 
merchants  and  professional  men  if  we  drifted  one  by 
one  into  the  classes  that  worked  with  their  hands?  I 
could  not  answer  that  difficult  question,  but  I  reminded 
her  that  she  herself  had  Once  long  ago  taught  me  that 
in  America  there  was  no  such  thing  as  high  and  low, 
and  no  shame  in  doing  anything.  Besides,  her  own 
daughters  were  earning  their  living  at  neckwear. 
Whereupon  she  invited  my  attention  to  the  subtle  fact 
that  neckties  were  not  shirts,  and  that  I  was  now  no 
longer  a  greenhorn,  which  altered  the  case  entirely. 
But  it  was  all  right.  I  could  go  to  the  shop  if  I  was 
determined  to,  and  see  for  myself. 

Well,  I  confess  that  there  was  more  than  a  grain  of 
truth  in  these  gloomy  predictions.  The  very  walk 
to  the  shop  that  early  morning  with  Cousin  Aby, 
the  collar-maker,  was  a  depressing  adventure.  We 
were  a  little  late,  and  I  was  being  properly  berated, 
as  we  hurried  along,  for  my  unindustrial  habits.  Canal 
Street  west  of  the  Bowery,  with  its  cobblestones  and 
clattering  trucks,  its  bare,  ugly  sides  and  trudging 
throngs  of  unkempt  men  and  girls,  was  not  half  so 
friendly  as  at  its  eastern  extremity.  And  as  we  swung 
past  Broadway  and  into  Walker  Street,  the  dreariness 
became  almost  intolerable.  Here  the  thoroughfare  was 
too  cramped  for  normal  traffic,  and  the  stunted,  grimy 
buildings  seemed  ludicrously  undersized  for  their  heavy 
tasks.  All  the  same,  the  little  alley  was  choked  up  with 
one-horse  carts,  its  sidewalks  were  littered  with  bales 

140 


SHIRTS    AND    PHILOSOPHY 

of  unmade  clothing,  a  pandemonium  of  rasping  curses 
from  drivers  and  half-awake,  half-grown  men  with 
aprons,  staggering  under  immense  burdens,  overtopped 
the  rattling  and  the  clanging  from  Broadway  beyond. 

And  then  we  felt  our  way  up  two  creaking  flights  of 
stairs,  and  my  cousin  opened  a  door,  and  we  entered. 
We  proceeded  to  the  right  toward  an  elongated  counter, 
where  I  was  introduced  to  the  boss;  my  cousin  removed 
his  coat  and  collar,  and  disappeared  into  the  wilderness 
beyond.  I  followed  him  with  my  eyes,  and  the  sight 
did  not  cheer  me.  There  were  three  endless  tables 
running  almost  through  the  entire  length  of  the  loft 
in  parallel  lines.  Each  table  was  dotted  with  a  row  of 
machines,  and  in  front  of  these  sat  the  operatives  like 
prisoners  chained  to  their  posts.  Men  and  women 
they  were,  collarless,  disheveled,  bent  into  irregular 
curves;  palpitating,  twitching,  as  if  they  were  so 
many  pistons  and  levers  in  some  huge,  monstrous 
engine.  On  the  nearer  end,  around  a  smaller  square 
table,  stood  an  old,  white-bearded  man,  a  young  girl, 
and  a  boy,  marking  shirts  with  a  pencil,  pulling  threads, 
folding,  "finishing."  The  intermittent  whirring  of 
wheels,  the  gasping  and  sucking  of  the  power-engine 
(somewhere  out  of  sight),  the  dull  murmur  of  voices, 
heightened  the  oppressive  effect. 

My  first  lesson,  administered  by  a  frowsy  little  man 
in  shirt-sleeves  and  no  collar,  with  his  suspenders  dan 
gling  loosely  at  his  sides,  was  very  bewildering.  I  had 
thought  that  I  was  to  learn  how  to  make  shirts;  but 

141 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

now  my  instructor  informed  me  with  a  smile  that  that 
would  be  a  rather  large  order.  No,  I  was  to  play  only 
a  very  small  part  in  the  great  performance.  I  was  to 
be  a  sleever;  and  sleeving,  it  appeared,  was  as  much  as 
any  one  man  could  desire,  for  it  involved  a  whole  chain 
of  skilful  and  delicate  operations.  The  shirts  were 
brought  to  you  in  two  bundles,  which  you  proceeded  to 
place,  each  bundle  in  a  separate  box,  one  situated  on 
the  right  side  and  the  other  on  the  left  side  of  your 
machine.  Then  you  suddenly  discovered — sometimes 
a  bit  too  late — that  the  bundles  contained  textiles  of 
several  designs  and  shades  of  color,  and  that  you  were 
expected  to  sew  no  green  sleeves  into  brown  shirts. 
The  machine  was  of  a  kind  that  I  had  not  even  suspected 
to  exist.  It  had  two  needles,  and  that  implied  two 
spools  and  two  threadings  and  two  bobbins.  Just  in 
front  of  the  needles  was  an  odd  device  called  a  "hem- 
mer"  which  was  designed  to  facilitate  the  work.  But 
the  whole  contraption  had  a  way  of  running  away  with 
you  as  soon  as  you  pressed  the  power  pedal,  so  that  the 
material  got  twisted  and  bunched  up  in  the  hemmer, 
and  usually  broke  both  needles  at  once,  and  sometimes 
lodged  one  of  them  in  your  thumb,  and  invariably,  at 
the  least,  tangled  up  the  thread  into  a  hopeless  mess. 

I  sewed  and  ripped  and  sewed  again  for  two  weeks 
without  pay,  and  I  am  afraid  that  the  proceeds  of  my 
toil  made  but  a  poor  return  for  the  boss's  patience  and 
instruction.  But  if  the  bargain  was  unprofitable  for 
him,  it  was  well-nigh  ruinous  to  me.  My  former 

142 


SHIRTS    AND    PHILOSOPHY 

employers  having  declined  (out  of  pure  benevolence) 
to  pay  me  the  month's  wages  they  owed  me,  my  great 
problem  was  to  survive  the  period  of  my  apprentice 
ship.  I  had  borrowed  an  amount  equivalent  to  that 
reserve  I  had  been  counting  on,  and  Mrs.  Bernfeld, 
with  whom  I  had  taken  up  residence  on  Eldridge  Street, 
was  kind  enough  to  let  me  pay  her  rent  at  the  end  of 
the  month  instead  of  in  advance.  But  with  all  my 
skimping  and  economizing  it  was  impossible  to  make 
three  dollars  last  very  much  longer  than  two  weeks. 
I  had  miscalculated  somewhat.  I  had  figured  on 
getting  some  money  when  my  instruction  was  over, 
forgetting  entirely  that  while  everything  else  had  to  be 
paid  for  as  I  went  or  beforehand,  labor  received  its 
rewards  only  after  it  was  done.  I  got  nothing  even 
when  I  had  completed  a  week  as  a  piece-worker.  Pay 
day  was  once  in  a  fortnight,  and  I  was  in  -the  shop  for 
a  month  before  my  first  envelope  came  around;  and 
then  I  discovered  that  although  I  had  sleeved  a  hundred 
and  sixty  dozens  of  shirts,  which,  at  the  rate  of  four 
cents  per  dozen,  ought  to  have  entitled  me  to  very 
nearly  six  dollars  and  a  half,  my  envelope  contained 
only  three  dollars.  One  week's  wages,  it  developed, 
was  regularly  held  back.  They  said  it  was  because  it 
took  that  long  to  audit  the  accounts.  But  that  was  a 
euphemism.  The  truth  was  that  that  week's  wages  of 
the  forty  hands  constituted  the  major  part  of  the  firm's 
operating  capital. 

For  all  that,  I  soon  found  myself  very  happy  in  my 

143 


AN   AMERICAN   IN    THE    MAKING 

new  surroundings.  Those  novelists  and  sentimental 
ists  who  slander  the  sweat-shop  and  the  tenement 
should  take  notice.  We  certainly  had  a  very  much 
more  human  time  of  it  in  the  old  days  than  we  did 
later  on  in  the  high-ceilinged,  many- windowed,  electric- 
fanned,  palatial  prisons  that  conformed  to  the  factory 
laws.  The  reasons  were  these:  In  the  sweat-shop  the 
hand  and  the  boss  belonged  to  the  same  class.  That 
made  a  big  difference.  There  were  no  spying  "fore- 
ladies"  and  no  rules,  no  peremptory  calls  to  the  office 
and  no  threats  of  discharge.  You  did  not  have  to 
stand  in  line  with  hat  in  hand  for  the  wages  of  your 
toil.  If  we  were  hard  up  after  a  long,  slack  season,  we 
could  get  all  our  meals  on  credit  from  the  old  shop- 
peddler,  who  sold  baked  liver  by  the  slice,  brandy, 
bananas,  and  rolls,  and  sometimes  lent  us  even  a  bit 
of  cash.  The  number  of  workers  was  small,  so  that 
everybody  knew  everybody  else.  During  the  lunch- 
hour  we  visited,  and  fell  into  violent  arguments  about 
the  labor  movement  and  socialism  and  literature,  and 
mocked  good-naturedly  at  the  "capitalist"  when  he 
ventured  to  put  in  a  word  (as  he  always  did) ;  and  each 
of  us,  except  the  girls,  took  his  turn  in  going  for  the 
can  of  beer.  All  this  tended  to  preserve  the  human 
dignity  and  the  self-respect  of  the  worker. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  my  firm  was  specializing  in 
the  stiff  black-and-white  article  intended  for  the 
Southern  negro,  my  earnings  kept  gradually  rising, 
until  (with  the  standards  of  barroom  wages  still  in 

144 


SHIRTS   AND    PHILOSOPHY 

my  mind)  they  attained  dizzying  heights.  With  softer 
materials,  to  be  sure,  I  might  have  turned  out  more 
dozens  per  day,  but  I  comforted  myself  with  the 
thought  that  the  work  would  be  more  "particular,"  so 
that  the  net  results  would  probably  be  about  the  same. 
The  "slack,"  indeed,  was  longer  and  more  thorough 
going  than  at  the  better  lines.  For  the  two  whole 
months  of  January  and  February  that  temperamental 
gentleman  in  the  South  seemed  to  be  dispensing  with 
shirts.  But  while  that  meant  going  into  debt  and 
cutting  down  on  luxuries,  there  were  compensating 
circumstances  even  then,  as  we  shall  see.  While  work 
was  rushing  I  got  in  touch  with  the  instalment  peddler 
and  bought  a  solid-gold  watch  and  chain  on  the  basis 
of  a  dollar  per  week,  and  once  in  an  access  of  extreme 
thriftiness  I  went  the  length  of  starting  a  savings 
account  with  the  Bowery  Bank,  which,  however,  never 
went  beyond  the  first  deposit,  for  one  thing  because  my 
fellow- workers  got  wind  of  the  fact  and  poked  fun  at  me 
and  called  me  capitalist,  and  secondly  because  the 
slack  fell  upon  us  suddenly  that  year  and  I  was  forced 
to  liquidate  and  the  cashier  told  me  in  a  coldly 
impersonal  way  that  my  patronage  would  not  be  desired 
again.  The  jewelry,  on  the  other  hand,  was  as  good 
as  a  solid  estate  and  much  better  than  money  in  the 
bank,  because  at  a  pinch  it  was  not  necessary  to  wait 
thirty  days  to  cash  in.  All  I  had  to  do  was  to  take  the 
things  to  "the  uncle,"  or,  as  you  would  call  it,  the  pawn 
shop,  and  get  thirty  dollars  all  at  once,  which  sufficed 

145 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

to  keep  the  peddler  pacified  with  regular  payments  as 
well  as  to  make  me  comfortable  until  prosperity  was 
mine  again.  There  was  no  denying  that,  for  all  its 
good  things  to  eat  and  drink,  and  its  lazy  afternoon 
hours,  and  educational  opportunities,  the  saloon  could 
not  hold  a  candle  to  the  two-needle  machine. 

Indeed,  the  sweat-shop  was  for  me  the  cradle  of 
liberty.  It  was  more — it  was  my  first  university.  I 
was  not  long  there  before  I  discovered  that  there  were 
better  things  I  could  do  with  my  free  evenings  than  to 
frequent  the  cozy  hang-outs  of  my  fellow-countrymen. 
When  I  overheard  a  dispute  between  the  young 
buttonhole-maker  and  the  cadaverous,  curly-haired 
closer,  on  the  respective  merits  of  the  stories  of  Tchekhov 
and  Maupassant;  and  when,  another  day,  the  little 
black-eyed  Russian  girl  who  was  receiving  two  cents 
per  dozen  shirts  as  a  finisher  boldly  asserted  that 
evolution  pointed  the  way  to  anarchism  and  not  to 
socialism,  and  cited  the  fact  that  Spencer  himself  was 
an  anarchist,  my  eyes  were  opened  and  I  felt  ashamed 
of  my  ignorance.  I  had  been  rather  inclined  hitherto 
to  feel  superior  to  my  surroundings,  and  to  regard  the 
shop  and  the  whole  East  Side  as  but  a  temporary  halt 
in  my  progress.  With  my  career  looming  on  the 
horizon,  and  my  inherited  tendency  to  look  down  upon 
mechanical  trades,  I  had  at  first  barely  given  a  tolerant 
eye  to  the  sordid  men  and  girls  who  worked  beside  me. 
I  had  not  realized  that  this  grimy,  toil-worn,  airless 
Ghetto  had  a  soul  and  a  mind  under  its  shabby  exterior. 

146 


SHIRTS    AND    PHILOSOPHY 

It  knew  everything  and  talked  about  everything. 
Nothing  in  the  way  of  thought-interest  was  too  big 
or  too  heavy  for  this  intelligenzia  of  the  slums. 

I  made  an  effort  to  listen  attentively  in  the  hope  that 
I  might  get  some  hint  as  to  where  my  fellow-operatives 
got  all  their  knowledge.  I  observed  that  nearly  all  of 
them  brought  books  with  them  to  work — Yiddish, 
Russian,  German,  and  even  English  books.  During 
the  lunch-hour,  if  the  disputatious  mood  was  not  on 
them,  the  entire  lot^of  them  had  their  heads  buried  in 
their  volumes  or  their  papers,  so  that  the  littered, 
unswept  loft  had  the  air  of  having  been  miraculously 
turned  into  a  library.  While  waiting  for  my  next 
bundle  of  shirts,  or  just  before  leaving  the  shop,  I 
would  stealthily  glance  at  a  title,  or  open  a  pamphlet 
and  snatch  a  word  or  two.  I  was  too  timid  to  inquire 
openly.  Once  a  girl  caught  me  by  the  wardrobe 
examining  her  book,  and  asked  me  whether  I  liked  books 
and  whether  I  went  to  the  lectures.  I  became  confused 
and  murmured  a  negative.  "You  know,"  she  said, 
"Gorky  is  going  to  speak  to-night,"  and  held  out  a 
newspaper  to  show  me  the  announcement. 

So  they  were  going  to  lectures!  I  began  to  buy 
newspapers  and  watch  for  the  notices.  I  took  to 
reading  books  and  attending  meetings  and  theaters. 
There  were  scores  of  lectures  every  week,  I  found,  and 
I  went  to  as  many  as  I  could.  One  night  it  was  Dar 
win,  and  the  next  it  might  be  the  principles  of  air- 
pressure.  On  a  Saturday  night  there  were  sometimes 

147 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

two  meetings  so  arranged  that  both  could  be  attended 
by  the  same  audience.  I  remember  going  once  to  a 
meeting  at  Cooper  Union  to  protest  against  tke  use  of 
the  militia  in  breaking  a  strike  somewhere  in  the  West, 
and  then  retiring  with  a  crowd  of  others  to  the  anarchist 
reading-room  on  Eldridge  Street  to  hear  an  informal 
discussion  on  "Hamlet  versus  Don  Quixote."  It  did 
not  matter  to  us  what  the  subject  was.  There  was  a 
peculiar,  intoxicating  joy  in  just  sitting  there  and  drink 
ing  in  the  words  of  the  speakers,  which  to  us  were 
echoes  from  a  higher  world  than  ours.  Quite  likely 
most  of  us  could  not  have  passed  an  examination  in 
any  of  the  subjects  we  heard  discussed.  It  was  some 
thing  more  valuable  than  information  that  we  were 
after.  Our  poor,  cramped  souls  were  yearning  to  be 
inspired  and  uplifted.  Never  in  all  my  experience 
since,  though  I  have  been  in  colleges  and  learned 
societies,  have  I  seen  such  earnest,  responsive  audiences 
as  were  those  collarless  men  and  hatless  girls  of  the 
sweat-shops. 

The  East  Side  theater  was  another  educational 
institution.  It  was  seldom  that  an  attempt  was  made 
to  entertain  us  there,  and  whenever  it  was  made  we 
expressed  our  resentment  by  hooting.  We  did  not  go 
to  the  theater  for  amusement  any  more  than  we  read 
books  or  listened  to  lectures  for  amusement.  It  was 
art  and  the  truthful  representation  of  actual  life  and 
the  element  of  culture  that  we  demanded,  and  the 
playwrights  who  satisfied  us  we  rewarded  by  our 

148 


SHIRTS    AND    PHILOSOPHY 

homage  and  our  devotion.  No  American  dramatist 
was  ever  worshiped  by  his  public  as  Jacob  Gordin  was. 
I  remember  that  when  a  reactionary  newspaper  tried 
to  stab  him  in  the  back  by  raising  a  cry  of  immorality 
against  one  of  his  plays,  the  whole  progressive  element 
in  the  Ghetto  came  as  a  unit  to  his  support  by  packing 
his  theater  and  clamoring  for  his  appearance.  The 
sheet  that  dared  attack  him  was  nearly  boycotted  out 
of  existence.  And  when,  some  years  later,  Gordin  died, 
every  shop  was  closed  on  the  East  Side  and  a  hundred 
thousand  followed  his  hearse  in  genuine  mourning. 
There  is  no  parallel,  I  think,  in  the  whole  history  of  the 
American  drama  to  this  testimonial  of  popular  devotion 
to  an  intellectual  leader. 

Nor  was  Gordin  the  only  divinity  on  our  dramatic 
Olympus.  There  were  younger  men  like  Libin  and 
Kobrin,  who,  while  they  might  be  said  to  have  been 
members  of  Gordin's  realistic  school,  had  made  some 
interesting  departures  in  subject-matter  by  laying 
emphasis  on  the  humor  and  pathos  of  life  in  the  New 
World  as  affecting  the  immigrant.  These  two  had  for 
a  long  time  been  principally  occupied  with  fiction,  but 
had  turned  to  the  stage  because  of  the  greater  educa 
tional  possibilities  of  the  drama.  The  Russians,  too, 
kept  in  touch  with  their  exiled  brethren  and  saw  to  it 
that  our  souls  did  not  starve  for  lack  of  spiritual 
sustenance.  Not  only  did  the  Canal  Street  publishers 
bring  out  the  beautiful  humorous  tales  of  Sholom 
Aleichem  and  Mendele  Mocher  Sforim  and  the  poetry 

149 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

of  Frug  and  Peretz,  several  amateur  organizations — 
precursors  of  the  numerous  "advanced"  playhouses 
now  fashionable  everywhere — were  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  producing  the  poetic  dramas  of  Hirshbein 
and  Peretz  and  the  symbolic  plays  of  Asch  and  Pin  sky  > 
which,  owing  to  their  extreme  literary  character,  were 
not  adapted  to  the  regular  theaters.  Notably  the 
Progressive  Dramatic  Club  conducted  readings  and 
performances  of  choice  tragedies  "from  home,"  which, 
although  they  were  intended  for  the  elect,  were  attended 
by  as  large  audiences  as  ever  went  to  the  Thalia  and 
People's  theaters. 

I  saw  more  good  literature  on  the  stage  in  those  days 
while  I  was  sewing  sleeves  into  shirts  than  I  saw  in  all 
my  subsequent  career.  When  the  original  playwrights 
could  not  fill  the  demand,  the  lack  was  supplied  by  the 
translators.  While  Broadway  was  giving  Ibsen  the 
cold  shoulder,  the  East  Side  was  acclaiming  him  with 
wild  enthusiasm.  I  saw  "Monna  Vanna"  on  the 
Bowery  before  the  Broadway  type  of  theater-goer  had 
ever  heard  the  name  of  Maeterlinck.  Many  foreign 
writers — Hauptmann,  Sudermann,  Gorky,  Andreiyev, 
Tolstoy — had  their  premieres  in  the  Ghetto.  The 
same  was  true  of  actors;  I  saw  Nazimova  in  "Ghosts" 
before  she  could  speak  English.  And  I  made  my  first 
acquaintance  with  Greek  tragedy  when  I  had  not  yet 
learned  how  to  speak  English. 


XIII 

THE   SOUL   OF   THE   GHETTO 

1DID  not  for  a  long  time  perceive  the  drift  of  all  this 
feverish  intellectual  activity.  I  was  too  busy  reading 
and  listening  to  care  about  the  ultimate  purpose  of  it 
all.  Gordin  was  giving  his  brilliant  talks  on  the 
Evolution  of  the  Drama,  and  running  a  series  of  sug 
gestive  articles  on  the  topic  in  Die  Zukunft.  A  group 
of  young  writers  had  just  begun  the  publication  of 
Die  Freie  Stunde  (The  Idle  Hour),  which  was  devoted 
only  to  what  was  best  in  belles-lettres.  The  war 
between  the  radical  and  the  reactionary  press,  always 
raging,  was  just  now  assuming  a  most  violent  character. 
The  anarchist  Freie  Arbeiter  Stimme  was  bringing  out 
the  journal  of  a  Catholic  priest  who  had  attained  to 
atheism,  and  publishing  column  upon  column  of  letters 
in  which  the  merits  of  religion  and  free-thought  were 
discussed  by  the  public,  a  certain  well-known  agnostic 
taking  up  the  defense  of  religion  for  argument's  sake. 
Within  the  progressive  circle  there  were  continual 
debates  between  socialists  and  anarchists,  which  some 
times  rose  to  passionate  fury,  but  always  remained 
enlightening.  My  mind  was  eagerly  absorbing  all  these 
new  impressions  and  all  these  wonderful  ideas.  A  new 

II  151 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

world  was  unfolding  itself  before  me,  with  endless, 
magnificent  vistas  extending  in  all  directions. 

The  "slack,"  that  bugbear  of  the  factory  hand,  was 
losing  its  terror  for  me.  A  time  arrived  when  I  would 
start  to  the  shop  in  the  morning  in  hopes  that  I  might 
find  the  power  turned  off  and  the  boss  explaining  that 
work  was  "slow."  On  such  days  I  would  keep  my  coat 
and  collar  right  on  and  take  myself  off  to  the  nearest 
library,  despite  the  boss's  protests  and  assurance  that 
he  was  expecting  the  bundles  from  the  manufacturer  to 
arrive  any  moment.  There  was  so  much  for  me  to  do. 
There  were  whole  stacks  of  Norwegian  dramatists,  and 
Russian  novelists,  and  Yiddish  poets  that  I  had  as  yet 
barely  touched.  In  my  room  there  was  a  collection  of 
the  Reclam  editions  of  Zola  and  Maupassant,  and  an 
assortment  of  plays  of  all  nations  which  had  been 
suggested  to  me  by  Gordin's  lectures  which  I  had  not 
yet  found  time  to  touch  at  all.  Besides,  I  was  trying 
to  become  a  writer  myself.  The  Forward  had  accepted 
and  published  some  aphorisms  of  mine  under  the  pen- 
name  of  "Max  the  Sleever,"  which  my  friends  at  the 
shop  had  greatly  admired.  I  was  devoting  whole  nights 
to  a  novel  in  the  manner  of  The  Kreutzer  Sonata.  Above 
all,  I  delighted  in  lingering  outside  the  literary  coffee 
houses  on  Canal  Street,  where  every  now  and  then  I 
would  catch  a  glimpse  of  Gordin  and  his  circle. 

With  my  mind  so  busy,  then,  it  was  not  surprising 
that  I  should  remain  somewhat  indifferent  to  what  was 
going  on  in  my  soul.  My  ancient  religion  had,  under 

152 


THE    SOUL    OF    THE    GHETTO 

American  skies,  vanished  long  ago;  but  I  was  scarcely 
aware  that  a  burning  new  faith  had  taken  its  place 
with  me,  as  it  had  done  with  thousands  of  others.  I 
cannot  now  say  whether  I  was  taking  it  for  granted  or 
did  not  know  it.  I  continually  heard  people  in  the 
shop,  and  in  the  quarter  generally,  referred  to  as 
"clodpates"  and  "intelligents,"  and  I  knew  that  an 
intelligent  was  a  person  who  went  to  lectures  and  read 
books,  and  preferred  tragedy  to  vaudeville,  and  looked 
upon  America  as  a  place  which  afforded  one  an  oppor 
tunity  to  acquire  and  express  ideas,  while  a  clodpate 
cared  more  for  dollars  than  for  ideas,  and  worked  hard 
so  that  some  day  he  might  have  others  work  for  him, 
and  in  the  evening  he  went  to  a  dance-hall  or  to  the 
Atlantic  Garden  or  to  Miner's  or  to  a  card-party,  and 
kept  himself  scrupulously  respectable  so  that  some  day, 
when  he  could  afford  it,  he  might  rise  to  be  the  presi 
dent  of  the  synagogue  or  the  lodge,  and  read  (when  he 
read  at  all)  the  Tageblatt  and  the  joke-books.  All  this 
I  knew,  and,  in  addition,  that  I  was  already  being  classed 
as  an  intelligent  among  the  hands  at  the  shop. 

It  never  occurred  to  me,  however,  to  attach  any 
ulterior  meaning  to  the  word.  It  was  obvious  enough; 
I  could  have  seen  it  if  I  had  only  looked.  But  somehow 
I  did  not  look — until  one  day  the  thing  struck  me  and 
I  had  to  look.  It  was  an  idle  day  at  the  shop.  The 
boss  had  persuaded  us  to  wait  for  the  work,  and  we 
were  lounging  about  on  the  machine-tables  and  on  the 
ends  of  cases.  Some  of  us  had  been  to  a  reading  of 

153 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

Ibsen's  symbolic  drama,  "When  We  Dead  Awaken," 
the  night  before,  and  were,  of  course,  discussing  it.  I 
said  that  I  liked  it.  Then  the  girl  who  had  the  year 
before  put  me  on  the  intellectual  track  spoke  up  and 
asked  me,  in  a  tone  of  pained  astonishment: 
"Why,  aren't  you  a  radical?" 

"Yes,  of  course,"  I  said,  a  little  uncertainly.  "Who 
is  not?" 

"Who  is  not?     The  clodpates  are  not." 
"But  what  has  this  got  to  do  with  literature?" 
"Well,"  she  answered,  "it  has  this  to  do  with  it. 
This  symbolism  business  is  reactionary.     It  has  always 
been.     It's  churchy." 

Then  I  suddenly  realized  that  everybody  I  knew  was 
either  a  socialist  or  an  anarchist.  It  came  to  me  in  a 
flash  that  this  social  idealism  was  the  soul  that  stirred 
within  everything  that  was  going  on  about  and  within 
me.  I  remembered  that  all  our  meetings  and  lectures 
were  colored  by  it.  And  I  understood  that  every 
intelligent  was  an  atheist  partly  because  every  clod- 
pate  was  a  believer  and  partly  because  the  established 
creeds  were  cluttering  the  road  to  social  and  spiritual 
progress.  When  I  asked  myself  why  we  studied  the 
abstruse  principles  of  physics,  the  answer  was  that  it 
helped  us  to  disprove  the  arguments  of  the  religious. 
Our  enthusiasm  for  evolution,  I  saw,  was  due  to  that 
doctrine's  implied  denial  of  the  biblical  story  of  creation. 
And  if  we  loved  the  poets,  it  was  because  they  seemed  to 
us  to  be  pervaded  by  a  lofty  discontent  with  the  existing 

154 


THE    SOUL    OF    THE    GHETTO 

order  of  things.  In  short,  I  perceived  that  we  were 
moved  by  a  very  vital  religion  of  our  own;  although, 
of  course,  we  would  have  scorned  to  call  it  by  that 
hated  name. 

I  imagine  that  one  of  the  things  that  had  misled  me 
was  the  absence  of  every  trace  of  sect  exclusiveness  in 
the  movement,  at  least  on  its  intellectual  side.  Bitter 
as  we  were  against  the  ruling  class,  we  took  no  exception 
to  its  books.  In  our  little  radical  libraries  Burke 
rubbed  elbows  with  Rousseau  and  the  works  of  the 
imperialist  Kipling  touched  sides  with  those  of  the 
revolutionary  Kropotkin.  Some  of  our  leaders  were  as 
assiduously  translating  Machiavelli  as  Oscar  Wilde. 
At  Warschauer's  Russian  tea-house — the  principal 
labor  resort — I  often  heard  Bacon  mentioned  respect 
fully  as  a  philosopher  alongside  of  Spencer.  Of  course, 
it  was  hard  for  us  to  see  how  a  man  who  had  the  mental 
and  emotional  equipment  of  a  great  author  could  be 
blind  to  the  justice  of  our  cause,  and  we  naturally  did 
favor  the  insurgent  writers.  But  art  is  art,  we  held, 
and  the  value  of  a  good  book  is  not  changed  by  the  fact 
that  its  author  is  wrong  about  the  rights  of  women  or 
the  referendum.  The  only  kind  of  writing  we  scorned 
was  the  stupid  and  the  fraudulent.  Toward  genuine 
literature  we  were  as  friendly  as  the  medieval  monks 
who  saved  the  literary  treasures  of  paganism  from 
destruction. 

Yes,  our  radicalism  had  all  the  nobility  and  all  the 
weaknesses  of  a  young  faith.  We  were  no  mere  parlor 

155 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

socialists,  we  toilers  of  the  slums.  Our  atheism  was  no 
affectation;  our  anarchism  was  not  a  fad  to  make 
conversation  with  over  the  tea-cups.  Nor  were  we 
concerned  with  the  improvement  of  our  own  material 
condition  merely.  We  were  engaged  in  the  regeneration 
of  society,  and  we  were  prepared  to  take  up  arms  in  the 
great  social  revolution  which  we  saw  daily  drawing 
nearer.  We  were  all  missionaries,  and  some  of  us  were 
quite  genuine  bigots.  On  the  Day  of  Atonement,  when 
all  the  conservative  people  of  the  quarter  fasted  and 
repented  and  knelt  in  prayer,  we  ostentatiously  went 
about  with  big  cigars  in  our  mouths  and  bags  of  food 
in  our  pockets;  and  in  the  afternoon  we  met  in  the 
public  square  and  marched  off  in  a  body  with  flags  and 
trumpets  to  the  atheist  picnic  somewhere  in  Brooklyn. 
Similarly,  during  the  Passover,  we  gave  an  entertain 
ment  and  ball,  where  we  consumed  more  forbidden 
food  and  drink  than  was  good  for  us.  No  doubt  this 
was  foolish — perhaps  it  was  even  vulgar — but  to  us  it 
was  propaganda  for  our  faith  among  the  unconverted. 

I  recall  a  lean  devotee  I  used  to  see  at  the  anarchist 
meetings.  He  never  missed  one,  and  he  never  failed 
to  occupy  a  seat  right  in  front  of  the  speaker's  stand. 
During  the  address  he  would  lean  forward  and  glue  his 
eyes  on  the  speaker,  as  if  he  were  determined  that  not 
a  word  should  escape  him.  And  then,  somehow,  it 
appeared  that  he  always  did  miss  something  very 
essential,  after  all.  When  the  floor  was  thrown  open 
for  general  discussion  he  was  invariably  the  first  to 

156 


THE    SOUL    OF    THE    GHETTO 

arise.  Whereupon  he  would  begin  with,  "  Thinkers  and 
comrades,"  and  proceed  to  make  a  few  irrelevant  re 
marks  which  showed  at  once  that  he  had  understood 
nothing  at  all  of  the  lecture.  Some  of  the  audience 
would  smile  at  him  and  some  would  murmur  impatiently 
until  he  would  grow  confused  and  sink  back  into  his 
seat.  But  these  ignominious  exhibitions  never  pre 
vented  him  from  heading  each  contribution  list  with 
some  extravagant  sum.  Occasionally  I  would  run 
across  him  at  a  little  restaurant  in  the  rear  of  a  saloon 
on  Eldridge  Street,  where  one  could  get  a  tolerable 
meal  for  thirteen  cents,  and  it  puzzled  me  to  reconcile 
that  open-handedness  at  the  meetings  with  this  skimp 
ing  on  food.  I  understood  it  only  when  I  became  a 
devotee  myself. 

I  have  often  since  looked  back  with  a  melancholy 
regret^to  those  splendid  days,  and  have  tried  to  recon 
struct  them  in  my  memory  and  to  find  a  parallel  for 
them  somewhere.  From  this  distance  they  seem  to  me 
comparable  to  nothing  else  so  much  as  to  those  early 
times  when  Christianity  was  still  the  faith  of  the 
despised  and  the  lowly.  There  was  in  us  that  apostolic 
simplicity  of  speech  and  manners,  that  disregard  of 
externals,  that  contempt  of  the  world  and  its  prizes, 
that  hatred  of  shams,  that  love  of  the  essential,  that 
intolerance  for  the  unbeliever,  which  only  they  who  feed 
on  a  living  ideal  can  know.  In  our  social  relations  it 
was  the  sincere  intention,  the  rigid  adherence  to  the 
truth  as  we  saw  it,  that  counted.  In  an  argument  it 

157 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

was  your  duty  to  be  frank  and  honest;  if  your  opponent 
was  offended,  so  much  the  worse  for  him.  You  could 
come  to  a  meeting,  to  a  play,  or  to  a  gathering  in  the 
house  of  a  friend  in  your  working  clothes  and  unshaven 
if  you  chose.  The  man  and  not  the  costume  was  the 
thing.  A  woman  was  but  a  human  being  in  petticoats; 
therefore  if  you  happened  to  want  company  at  War- 
schauer's,  or  felt  the  need  of  giving  play  to  your 
opinions  at  the  theater,  you  need  not  hesitate  to  address 
the  first  girl  that  came  your  way;  therefore,  also,  you 
need  not  spare  her  in  a  battle  of  ideas;  but  therefore, 
also,  you  need  not  expect  to  be  looked  up  to  as  a  superior 
creature  with  a  whole  chain  of  exploded  privileges  and 
immunities.  She  was  in  every  way  your  human  equal 
and  counterpart,  whatever  the  animal  differences 
between  you  might  be.  Your  business  in  life  was  to 
labor  for  the  things  that  you  devoured,  to  cultivate  your 
mind,  and  to  serve  the  ideals  of  your  class.  Beside 
these,  the  sordid  concerns  of  the  bodily  existence  were 
a  secondary  matter.  Wherefore  the  American  heathen 
with  his  wealth  and  his  show,  his  worldliness  and  his 
materialism  and  his  sporting  page,  was  an  object 
worthy  of  your  profoundest  contempt. 

What  else  could  it  be,  if  it  was  not  this  ancient  dream 
of  the  prophets  revitalized  and  recast  into  a  modern 
mold,  that  had  the  magic  power  to  transfigure  the 
rotting  slums  into  an  oasis  of  spiritual  luxuriance,  and 
the  gloomy,  dust-laden  factory  into  a  house  of  light 
and  hope?  The  mere  human  thirst  for  knowledge,  the 

158 


THE    SOUL    OF    THE    GHETTO 

purely  selfish  craving  for  personal  advancement,  is 
hardly  strong  enough  to  have  made  us  sit  up  night  after 
night  and  listen  to  abstract  discussions  about  monkeys 
and  men  or  the  basis  of  religious  belief,  when  our  worn- 
out  bodies  were  eminently  entitled  to  rest  and  light 
entertainment.  And  surely  nothing  but  this  attach 
ment  to  the  uplifting  promise  of  a  noble  future  for 
mankind,  this  devotion  to  something  outside  of  our 
unwashed  selves  and  above  our  grimy  surroundings, 
could  have  rendered  us  so  heartlessly  indifferent  to  the 
bleeding  hearts  of  our  poor  bewildered  elders.  How  the 
wretched  graybeards  and  peruqued  grandmothers 
suffered  at  the  disaffection  of  their  young!  For  even 
in  the  most  advanced  households  it  was  a  rare  thing  if 
the  two  generations  were  in  spiritual  accord;  and  in 
the  greater  part  of  them  clodpate  and  intelligent  dined 
at  the  same  table  and  clashed  continually — the  parents 
enduring  violent  agonies  over  the  children's  disloyalty 
to  the  ancient  faith,  their  sacrilegious  mockery  of  the 
Law  and  its  practices,  their  adherence  to  an  abhorred 
creed,  their  oblivion  to  the  ambitions  that  father  and 
mother  had  so  long  entertained  for  them;  while  the 
youth  thought  of  nothing  but  the  progress  of  the  cause 
and  flaunted  the  red  flag  in  the  faces  of  their  beloved 
parents  in  the  hope  of  convincing  them  of  its  honesty 
by  the  simple  device  of  getting  them  used  to  it.  It 
needed  just  that  element  of  tragedy  to  add  to  East 
Side  radicalism  the  cup  of  martyrdom  without  which  no 
religion  is  quite  genuine. 

159 


XIV 

THE   TRAGEDY   OF   READJUSTMENT 

1  MYSELF  was  in  the  meantime  moving  in  two  sepa 
rate  worlds.  Nominally,  at  least,  my  home  was  still 
in  Little  Rumania  among  my  own  respectable  rela 
tives  from  Vaslui.  Time  and  again  I  resolved  to  find  a 
lodging  somewhere  south  of  Grand  Street,  where  the 
majority  of  my  comrades  in  spirit  lived  and  where  all  my 
interests  lay.  But  I  never  did  it.  Of  friction  there  was 
enough  between  us.  They  were  very  outspoken,  were 
my  kinsfolk,  in  their  disapproval  of  me.  They  found 
fault  with  my  impiety,  my  socialism  (or  anarchism — 
they  did  not  know  just  which  it  was),  my  indifference 
to  dress  and  the  social  proprieties,  my  ragamuffin 
argumentative  associates.  Mrs.  Segal,  who  still  at 
tempted  to  hold  a  protecting  wing  over  me,  took  me 
to  task  often  for  not  dropping  in  to  her  Sunday  after 
noon  "at  homes,"  which  were  the  rendezvous  of  the 
gilded  youth  of  our  home  town,  and  especially  for  neg 
lecting  to  assist  at  the  betrothal-party  of  her  oldest 
daughter.  Others  of  my  blood  observed  that  despite  my 
aptness  in  picking  up  English,  I  was  unpardonably  slow 
in  getting  Americanized  and  doing  nothing  toward  be- 

160 


THE    TRAGEDY    OF    READJUSTMENT 

coming  a  doctor.  I  was  making  quite  a  lot  of  money, 
too,  but  not  only  did  I  send  very  little  of  it  home,  I  did 
not  even  have  a  bank  account.  Cousin  Aby,  who, 
though  he  was  still  making  shirt-collars,  had  never 
become  a  radical,  kept  eternally  at  me  for  smoking  on 
the  Sabbath  instead  of  going  to  the  services.  I,  for 
my  part,  had  my  own  opinions  of  their  superficial 
Americanism,  their  indifference  to  the  seething  intellec 
tual  life  about  them,  their  blindness  to  the  fine  merits  of 
the  labor  cause,  and  missed  no  opportunity  to  express 
my  views.  And  yet  some  curious  bond  held  us  to 
gether.  I  had  a  strange  feeling  that  I  would  miss  them, 
that  I  would  feel  lonely  without  them,  and  I  knew  that 
they  would  take  it  as  the  final  insult  if  I  were  to  draw 
away  from  them  altogether. 

These  strained  relations  with  my  Old  World  kin,  as 
well  as  the  tragic  experiences  of  my  fellow-radicals, 
often  made  me  pause  and  wonder  how  I  should  get  on 
with  my  own  parents  if  I  were  ever  to  succeed  in 
bringing  them  over.  Father,  to  be  sure,  was  not,  as 
I  remembered,  what  one  could  call  fanatically  religious, 
and  mother  had  implicit  confidence  in  me  to  do  the 
right  thing.  But  they  were  both,  after  all,  to  the  last 
degree  old-fashioned  and  rigidly  conservative.  They 
had  a  horror  of  the  very  word  "socialist."  I  recalled 
how  shocked  they  had  been  once — I  was  a  mere  child 
at  the  time — when  mother's  nephew  Herschel  came 
back  from  a  long  sojourn  in  Vienna  and  declared  himself 
a  socialist.  He  caused  a  most  painful  sensation,  and 

161 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

my  parents  declined  to  have  him  come  to  our  house  lest 
he  should  contaminate  it,  and  his  own  mother  treated 
him  as  an  apostate  and  offered  up  candles  at  the 
synagogue  for  the  reclaiming  of  his  soul.  Of  course, 
America  was  a  different  story;  and  they  would  be 
coming  into  my  world  and  not  I  into  theirs.  But  it  was 
difficult  to  imagine  mother  accepting  me,  her  kaddish, 
in  the  role  of  an  unbeliever,  and  father  going  off  alone 
to  temple  on  the  morning  of  the  Day  of  Atonement 
while  I  prepared  for  the  F.  A.  S.  picnic.  I  wanted 
them,  however,  very  much  to  come.  Conditions  were 
now  somewhat  favorable.  It  was  my  third  year  at 
the  trade  and  I  was  now  an  expert  sleever.  I  was 
employed  at  the  very  best  line;  I  was  turning  out  forty 
and  often  fifty  dozen  a  day;  my  rate  (thanks,  in  part, 
to  the  union)  had  risen  to  five  and  a  half  cents,  and  when 
the  material  was  silk,  as  it  often  was,  I  got  as  much  as 
twenty  cents  per  dozen.  I  had  paid  every  penny  on  my 
watch  and  chain,  and  the  instalment  man  was  eter 
nally  asking  me  when  I  was  going  to  give  him  another 
"show."  Didn't  I  want  a  diamond  ring  or  a  steamer 
ticket  for  some  one?  Or  something?  Yes,  I  did  want 
more  than  one  steamer  ticket,  and  later  on  I  would 
want,  very  likely,  quite  a  lot  of  house-furnishings. 
But — I  was  revolving  the  problem  in  my  head,  when 
suddenly  Destiny  stepped  in  and  solved  it  for  me  in 
her  own  summary  fashion. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1903  I  wrote  to  my  brother 
Harry,  who  was  still  at  his  big  job  in  Constantza,  to  get 

162 


THE    TRAGEDY    OF    READJUSTMENT 

his  advice — not,  of  course,  on  the  real  difficulty,  but  on 
the  general  situation.  He  answered  that,  owing  to  the 
commercial  depression  in  Rumania,  he  was  himself 
thinking  quite  seriously  of  going  to  America.  His 
suggestion  was  that  I  should  send  a  steamer  ticket  to 
Paul;  and  then,  when  the  three  of  us  were  together,  we 
would  manage  by  our  joint  efforts  to  bring  over  the 
old  folks.  Paul  had  met  with  hard  luck  at  his  trade 
ever  since  his  discharge  from  the  army,  so  that  he  had 
no  money  of  his  own  to  make  the  trip.  I  hunted  up  my 
peddler  at  once,  gave  him  a  deposit  of  five  dollars  on  a 
direct  Vaslui-New  York  second-class  ticket,  and  sent 
it  off  to  Paul.  A  little  more  than  a  month  later  I  heard 
from  Harry  again,  this  time  from  Vaslui.  He  wrote 
that  their  preparations  for  the  journey  were  completed, 
and  that  he  meant  to  sail  with  Paul  from  Bremen  about 
the  1st  of  June.  I  watched  the  ship  news  for  the  next 
four  months.  Several  times  I  went  down  to  the  offices 
of  the  Lloyd  to  inquire.  I  haunted  the  piers.  I  even 
telephoned  to  Ellis  Island,  thinking  that  perhaps  my 
guests  had  been  detained  there  in  spite  of  their  superior 
mode  of  travel.  But  not  a  sign  of  any  brothers.  Not 
even  a  word  of  explanation.  I  was  nearly  out  of  my 
wits  with  apprehension.  I  bombarded  Harry  and 
father  and  everybody  I  could  think  of  with  anxious 
letters,  without  results.  At  last — it  was  autumn  now — 
it  occurred  to  me  to  make  inquiries  at  my  former 
address.  My  former  landlady,  Mrs.  Bernfeld,  appeared 
ill  at  ease  at  my  unexpected  visit,  contrary  to  her 

163 


AN   AMERICAN    IN   THE   MAKING 

habitual  pleasure  on  seeing  me.  When  I  told  her  what 
I  had  come  for  she  asked  me  nervously  what  made  me 
think  that  she  would  not  forward  my  mail.  With  my 
suspicions  and  fears  aroused  by  her  manner,  I  insisted 
that  there  must  be  something  for  me.  Then  she 
yielded  it  up.  It  was  a  postal  card,  written  in  the  hand 
of  the  rabbi,  advising  me  that  father  had  died  in 
August  and  urging  me  to  perform  the  religious  duties 
expected  of  a  son  in  the  circumstances.  Some  days 
later  a  second  card  in  the  same  hand  informed  me  that 
mother  had  caught  cold  at  father's  funeral,  pneumonia 
had  developed,  and  she  had  died  in  less  than  a  fort 
night. 

My  brothers  did  not  get  to  New  York  until  February. 
When  I  met  them  at  Hoboken  we  kissed  and  wept  to 
gether,  and  I  got  the  details  of  my  parents'  death. 
Harry,  being  a  man  of  business,  was  bent  on  going  at 
once  into  an  account  of  the  disposition  of  the  estate. 
He  began  by  observing  that  since  he  had  had  to  stand 
the  expense  of  the  illnesses  and  the  funerals,  it  was  no 
more  than  just  that  he  should  inherit  the  feather- 
bedding  and  the  brass  things.  As  for  the  remainder- 
but  I  waved  the  topic  aside,  assuring  him  that  there  was 
time  enough  for  that.  On  the  ferry-boat  across  the 
river  I  observed  that  he  was  taking  me  in  critically. 
No  sooner  had  we  seated  ourselves  in  an  Elevated  car 
than  he  turned  upon  me  and,  without  preface  or  intro 
duction,  demanded  to  know  whether  I  was  doing  my 
duty  by  the  dead.  My  first  impulse  was  to  tell  him 

164 


THE    TRAGEDY    OF    READJUSTMENT 

the  unpalatable  truth  without  delay;  on  second  thought 
I  decided  to  spare  him.  This  was  no  time  for  propa 
ganda;  it  would  merely  pain  him;  he  would  not 
understand  my  position  offhand  like  this.  So  I 
begged  again  for  time.  Brother  Paul,  who  had  thus 
far  merely  sat  there  holding  my  hand  and  devouring 
me  with  his  eyes  but  saying  nothing,  agreed  that  a 
public  vehicle  was  no  place  for  family  conferences. 
But  Harry  insisted.  Surely  I  could  answer  a  plain 
question:  Did  I  say  Jcaddish — yes  or  no?  Well,  it  was 
yes  and  no.  The  truth  was  that  at  the  first  shock  of 
the  terrible  news  I  had  compromised  with  my  conscience 
and  had  attended  services,  mornings  before  going  to 
work  and  evenings  after  returning.  I  had  kept  it  up 
for  ten  days.  Then  I  had  rebelled.  I  simply  could  not 
endure  the  sham  of  it  and  the  self-deception.  The 
lickspittle,  mercenary  air  of  the  beadles  had  disgusted 
me.  He  had  better  wait  before  he  judged  me. 
America,  he  would  find,  would  change  his  ideas,  as  she 
had  changed  mine.  It  could  not  be  helped.  Father 
and  mother  would  forgive  me.  They,  too,  would  have 
understood  if  they  had  lived  and  come  here.  Harry 
regarded  me  with  a  pitying  look  and  turned  away.  He 
refused  to  speak  to  me  for  the  next  twenty-four  hours. 

My  brother  Paul  had  been  a  spirited  youngster  and 
had  objected  to  the  rigid  methods  of  education  at  home, 
with  the  consequence  that  he  was  a  bit  backward  in 
bookish  things.  He  found  now  that  he  had  to  pay  the 
price  of  his  youthful  escapades.  He  experienced  great 

165 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

difficulties  in  finding  his  way  about,  in  reading  street 
names,  and  in  handling  foreign  money.  Nevertheless, 
thanks  to  his  mechanical  occupation,  he  was  not  long 
in  getting  work.  In  fact,  he  got  his  first  job  several 
weeks  before  Harry  got  his,  and  immediately  offered 
to  take  over  the  payments  on  his  ticket.  Harry  was 
thoroughly  scandalized  by  everything  American.  He 
found  every  one,  from  Mrs.  Schlesinger  (our  land 
lady)  down  to  his  prospective  employers  and  his  own 
brother,  coarsened  and  vulgarized.  The  children  were 
too  smart  and  forward;  the  women  were  loud  and  over 
dressed  and  ill-mannered;  above  all,  the  shops  were 
dingy  and  ill-kept  and  inelegant.  From  these  last  he 
had  expected  a  great  deal.  He  had  thought  of  New 
York  as  a  kind  of  magnified  Bucharest — a  great,  refined, 
luxurious  city,  with  beautiful  stores  where  it  would  be 
a  proud  joy  to  work.  That  was  one  of  the  things  that 
had  induced  him  to  come  to  America.  In  Rumania  he 
had  always  been  employed  in  the  haberdasheries— 
magazins  de  gallanterie  they  were  called — of  the  small 
Black  Sea  port-towns,  and  he  had  for  years  dreamed  of 
getting  a  situation  at  one  of  the  brilliant  shops  of  the 
capital.  His  longing  had  never  been  fulfilled,  and  he 
had  emigrated  to  America  with  a  feeling  that  here  he 
would  better  his  own  aspiration.  And  what  did  he 
find?  Of  course,  the  department  stores  on  Fourteenth 
Street  and  on  Sixth  Avenue,  which  he  sallied  forth  to 
look  over  with  wistful  eyes  on  the  very  day  following 
his  arrival,  were  inexpressibly  wonderful;  but  they 

166 


THE    TRAGEDY    OF    READJUSTMENT 

were,  for  the  time  being,  at  least,  out  of  his  reach.  He 
had  learned  to  speak  Greek  and  Italian  and  Turkish 
in  Constantza,  but  all  these  languages  were  of  no 
earthly  use  in  New  York  without  English.  The  only 
places  that  were  open  to  him  were  the  unspeakably 
shabby  holes  in  the  Italian  quarter  or  on  Hester  Street. 
They  were,  for  the  most  part,  in  gloomy  basements; 
their  owners  were  rough,  unkempt  Polish  and  Russian 
ex-peddlers  with  fat,  noisy  wives  (in  one  of  them  he 
had  actually  found  the  whole  family  lunching  on  the 
counter);  the  customers,  instead  of  the  sea-captains 
and  naval  officers  and  refined  Greek  ladies  and  suave 
Ottoman  traders  he  had  been  accustomed  to,  were  crude 
Sicilian  peasants  whose  harsh  dialects  he  scarcely  under 
stood,  or  East  Side  fishwomen.  It  made  him  very 
unhappy. 

I  suggested  that,  since  he  had  brought  quite  a  bit  of 
money  with  him,  he  could  easily  learn  to  be  a  cutter  at 
cloaks.  That,  surely,  was  elegant  enough  for  any  taste. 
It  was  universally  considered  the  next  best  thing  to  a 
doctor.  The  very  first  families  in  Little  Rumania 
thought  a  "cotter"  an  excellent  catch  for  their  marriage 
able  daughters.  All  the  best  young  men  in  the  quarter 
who  had  a  sense  of  what  was  "classy"  were  saving 
their  pennies  toward  that  end.  Cousin  Aby  was 
dreaming  of  exchanging  the  machine  for  the  knife  as 
soon  as  he  had  enough  money  for  the  instruction  fee 
and  the  wageless  month  of  apprenticeship.  But  Harry 
cried  out  that  my  suggestion  was  an  insult.  Was  that 

12  167 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

what  he  had  clerked  for  all  his  life,  and  economized, 
and  learned  refined  manners  from  his  aristocratic 
customers  in  Constantza?  Was  that  what  he  had 
come  across  seas  to  America  for — to  become  a  woman's 
tailor?  No,  thank  God  he  had  enough  money  left  to 
go  back  to  Rumania,  where  character  and  ability  and 
gentlemanly  qualities  still  counted  for  something. 
Curse  Columbus  and  his  country.  He  was  going  back. 
But  he  did  not;  because  before  he  had  time  to  buy  his 
ticket  he  found  a  job  in  a  basement  store  on  Mulberry 
Street  and  got  eight  dollars  a  week,  which  he  estimated 
to  be  nearly  twice  as  many  francs  as  he  had  ever  received 
in  the  most  elegant  shop  on  the  shores  of  the  Black 
Sea. 

While  Harry  was  idle  he  amused  himself  by 
rummaging  among  my  books  and  papers — when  he  was 
not,  that  is,  making  excursions  through  the  department 
stores.  One  evening — it  was  during  the  first  week  after 
his  arrival — he  picked  up  a  copy  of  the  Zukunft  and 
regarded  it  dubiously.  Then,  with  a  sudden  inspiration 
lighting  up  his  puzzled  face,  he  looked  me  squarely  in 
the  eye  and  charged  me  point-blank  with  being  a 
socialist.  I  could  not  help  marveling  at  his  sharpness, 
because  there  was  nothing  on  the  cover  of  the  publica 
tion  to  betray  me.  His  next  sally  enlightened  me: 
"Young  men  who  are  respectable  and  mind  their  busi' 
ness,"  he  said  in  a  voice  shaken  with  emotion,  "do  not 
waste  their  time  reading  monthly  magazines.  Now  I 
know  why  you  sent  home  so  little  money  and  why  you 

168 


THE    TRAGEDY    OF    READJUSTMENT 

do  not  attend  to  your  Jcaddish  and  why,  after  three 
years  in  America,  you  are  still  an  operator  at  shirts 
instead  of  having  a  business  of  your  own.  Die  Zukunft 
(The  Future),"  he  sneered,  bitterly;  "a  fine  future  will 
come  to  you  reading  this  sort  of  thing.  Our  poor 
parents  would  die  again  if  they  knew  what  has  become 
of  the  promising  son  of  their  old  age."  When  the  April 
holidays  came  and  I  made  no  pretense  of  keeping  them, 
he  suffered  keenly.  He  tried  to  reason  with  me  and  to 
bring  me  to  a  conviction  of  sin.  He  was  older,  he 
argued,  and  he  knew  better.  He  by  no  means  meant 
to  have  me  a  bigot  in  religious  matters,  but  my  behavior 
was  treason  to  everything  that  had  from  time  imme 
morial  been  sacred  to  our  people. 

In  my  own  justification  I  must  say  that  I  did  every 
thing  I  could,  short  of  betraying  my  convictions,  to 
lessen  his  suffering.  I  went  to  my  meetings  secretly 
and  did  all  my  reading  at  the  library.  I  avoided  argu 
ment,  even  at  the  cost  of  losing  a  possible  convert.  I 
even  kept  all  my  radical  friends  away  from  our  room, 
fearing  that  their  zeal  might  get  the  better  of  their 
discretion.  But  I  did  not  have  to  keep  up  this  religious 
regimen  very  long.  Harry  had  scarcely  been  in  New 
York  three  months  before  I  began  to  notice  that  he  was 
rapidly  undergoing  a  change.  He  began  to  funk  in 
his  prayers  for  the  dead,  offering  at  first  the  excuse  that 
his  long  hours  of  employment  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  go  to  daily  services.  After  a  time  he  openly 
began  to  smoke  cigarettes  on  the  Sabbath.  I  asked 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

him  about  it,  and  he  answered  that  he  was  not  the 
simpleton  I  took  him  for.  In  fact,  he  admitted,  he  had 
never  been  able  to  see  anything  in  the  old-fashioned 
faith.  It  was  all  well  enough  for  unintelligent,  un- 
emancipated  people,  but  he  was  a  modern  man.  His 
profession  of  enlightenment  could  have  furnished  me 
with  lessons  in  blasphemy.  But  when  I  invited  him  to 
accompany  me  to  a  lecture  on  a  Sunday  evening  he  told 
me  that  he  was  too  tired  and  that  he  needed  recreation. 
It  was  as  impossible  now  to  get  him  interested  in  radical 
ism  as  when  he  had  landed.  The  ancient  faith  had 
gone,  but  nothing  had  come  to  take  its  place. 

All  the  same,  it  was  Harry  who  brought  me  my  first 
and  most  successful  proselyte.  For  it  was  through  him 
that  I  met  my  excellent  friend  Esther.  Harry  had  no 
sooner  got  a  job  and  opened  a  bank  account  and  settled 
down  to  his  place  in  the  American  scheme  of  existence 
than  he  invested  his  surplus  income  in  some  first-class 
clothes  and  furnishings  and  plunged  into  the  social 
whirl.  Unlike  myself,  he  regularly  attended  Mrs. 
Segal's  salon  and  sought  out  the  most  desirable  people. 
He  saw  that  with  his  knowledge  of  Italian  it  would  not 
take  him  long  to  have  a  shop  of  his  own,  and  he  was 
frankly  looking  about  for  a  gentle  partner  to  share  his 
future  prosperity  with  him.  On  a  Sunday  afternoon  as 
soon  as  his  store  was  closed  he  would  hurry  home  and 
clean  up  and  get  into  his  best  shoes  and  neckwear,  to  say 
nothing  of  suits,  and  bolt  forth  on  his  round  of  calls. 

170 


THE    TRAGEDY    OF    READJUSTMENT 

Now  and  then  he  would  persuade  Paul  and  me  to  go 
with  him,  and  it  was  on  one  of  the  first  of  those  occasions 
that  I  fell  in  with  Esther. 

Something  about  her  hearty,  almost  masculine  hand 
shake  and  her  unaffected  manner  arrested  my  attention. 
Her  plain  way  of  dressing  and  tying  her  hair,  the 
straightforward  tone  of  her  speech,  her  reserve — all 
these  told  me  that  she  was  not  the  customary  Rumanian 
girl.  I  got  into  talk  with  her,  and  found  that  she  was 
reading  quite  a  lot,  and  by  no  means  the  conventional 
books  for  young  ladies.  She  had  been  in  America  no 
longer  than  I  had,  but  (partly  because  of  her  un- 
familiarity  with  Yiddish)  she  was  managing  to  get  on 
with  English  print.  We  compared  notes,  and  found 
that  our  history  as  well  as  our  leanings  had  much  in 
common.  She,  too,  had  had  her  purifications.  She 
had  run  the  gamut  of  occupations,  from  cash-girl  in  an 
East  Side  department  store  to  the  factory,  but  now  she 
was  a  trimmer  at  millinery  and  earning  enough.  Never 
theless,  she  was  discontented.  She  had  a  vague  feeling 
that  she  wanted  to  "do"  something  with  herself  and 
with  the  world. 

We  became  fast  friends.  I  read  things  to  her  from 
the  Zukunft  and  from  the  other  radical  publications, 
and  she  drank  in  everything  with  wide  eyes.  This  was 
a  new  and  splendid  world  of  ideas  and  ideals,  she  told 
me.  In  some  remote  way  she  had  been  thinking  similar 
things.  Then  I  offered  to  take  her  to  a  lecture.  She 
went  and  came  away  radiant.  She  was  furious  with 

171 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

her  folks  for  not  having  been  taught  the  humble  mother 
tongue,  as  her  brothers  had  been.  She  had  never 
dreamed  of  its  literary  treasures  and  of  the  things  that 
were  reported  in  its  press.  I  undertook  to  teach  her  to 
read  Yiddish;  and  before  long  she  abandoned  her 
English  fiction  and  devoured  Peretz  and  Gordin. 

She  bettered  my  instruction.  Although  a  little 
sentimental,  her  devotion  to  the  radical  faith  was  far 
more  intense  from  the  start  than  mine.  She  would 
not  let  me  miss  anything.  In  the  hottest  weather  she 
would  insist  on  going,  and  dragging  me  with  her,  to  all 
sorts  of  out-of-the-way  places,  climbing  endless  flights 
of  stairs,  elbowing  her  way  into  jammed  halls,  and 
sweltering  in  the  close  air  until  the  end.  If  I  objected, 
she  would  look  at  me  like  Conscience  incarnate  and  ask 
me  whether  I  was  not  backsliding  and  whether  I  was 
not  becoming  a  bourgeois  "again"!  At  such  times  I 
would  tell  her  that  I  wished  I  had  bit  off  my  tongue 
before  talking  to  her  about  the  Movement.  But  in 
the  depths  of  my  heart  I  was  very  proud  of  her.  She 
was  such  a  soul  as  any  missionary  might  well  be  proud 
of  having  saved.  And  she  was  even  a  better  friend 
than  she  was  a  disciple. 


XV 

THE   TRIALS   OF   SCHOLARSHIP 

MY  radical  interests  had  one  salutary  result  im 
mediately.  I  was  not  content  to  know  at  second 
hand  the  great  writers  and  thinkers  whom  I  heard  con 
tinually  discussed.  But  in  order  to  read  them  I  must 
know  English.  I  began  my  literary  study  of  the  lan 
guage  one  memorable  night  by  borrowing  a  one- volume 
edition  of  the  complete  works  of  Shakespeare  from  the 
Bond  Street  library.  As  soon  as  I  got  home  I  eagerly 
opened  my  treasure  and  turned  to  "Hamlet."  To 
read  "Hamlet"  in  the  original  had  long  been  one  of 
my  most  ambitious  dreams.  But,  to  my  disappoint 
ment,  I  found  that  I  could  not  get  more  than  one  word 
in  ten,  and  of  the  sense  nothing  at  all.  Shakespeare  as 
a  first  reader  proved  a  total  failure. 

It  was  then  I  decided  to  go  to  school,  although  I 
should  mention  that  my  inspiration  came  in  great  part 
from  Abe  Wykoff,  whom  I  had  shortly  before  met  at 
a  lecture.  The  chap  was  a  cloak-maker  with  ambitions 
similar  to  my  own.  As  we  came  out  of  the  building  he 
said:  "Comrade,  I  am  going  to  throw  up  the  machine. 
I  am  sick  of  cloaks.  Three  months  in  the  year  you 

173 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

work  overtime  till  midnight  so  that  it  nearly  kills  you 
intellectually  and  physically.  And  the  rest  of  the  time 
you  are  so  hard  up  you  have  not  a  dime  for  the  Zukunft. 
I  am  going  to  study  dentistry.  I  had  a  little  training 
at  home,  and  I  think  I  can  pull  through.  Then 
liberty!  Time  to  read  and  to  think — to  be  a  human 
being.  I  listened  to  Feigenbaum  here  the  other  night- 
did  you  near  him  on  'Dominant  Figures  in  World 
Literature?' — and  it  made  my  heart  sick.  Goethe, 
Calderon,  Racine,  Dante,  what  do  I  know  about  them? 
Hearsay,  nothing  more.  I  want  to  get  into  them, 
but,  good  Lord!  where  is  the  leisure?  A  professional 
man  is  different.  I  hear  that  Gordin  and  the  others 
are  getting  together  to  start  a  progressive  school  for 
workmen.  You  and  I  ought  to  look  into  it.  It  is  to 
be  called  the  Educational  League." 

The  new  organization  opened  its  doors  toward  the 
end  of  August,  and  Abe  and  I  were  among  the  first 
of  its  pupils.  Tuition  was  entirely  free,  and  there  were 
no  restrictions  as  to  the  choice  of  studies.  All  of  the 
teachers  gave  their  services  without  pay  and  with  no 
lack  of  enthusiasm.  Before  a  month  had  passed  the 
place  was  filled — a  student  body  made  up  of  boys  and 
girls  in  their  teens,  bearded  men  and  middle-aged 
women,  former  gymnasium  students  from  Russia  and 
semi-illiterates  from  Galicia— all  the  ages  and  types  of 
the  diversified  Ghetto.  But  the  school  turned  out  to 
be  somewhat  of  a  disappointment.  Its  fine  liberal 
spirit  tended  to  degenerate  into  a  mere  absence  of 

174 


THE    TRIALS    OF    SCHOLARSHIP 

system  and  order.  Pupils  came  in  at  all  hours  and 
interrupted  the  classes.  Attendance  was  irregular,  and 
those  who  were  present  one  night  were  unable  to  follow 
the  lesson  because  of  what  they  had  missed  the  night 
before.  The  program  of  the  league,  moreover,  was 
an  odd  one.  Its  twelve  rooms  housed  a  course  of  study 
which  began  with  elementary  arithmetic  and  spelling 
and  ended  with  university  courses  in  evolution,  the 
philosophy  of  Nietzsche,  the  history  of  the  labor  move 
ment,  Attic  tragedy,  and  comparative  religion;  and 
teachers  and  students  alike  were  too  interested  in  the 
lectures  and  discussions  on  literary  and  social  matters 
to  give  much  attention  to  the  exercises  in  orthography. 
By  the  latter  part  of  September  I  took  an  inventory  of 
my  added  stock  of  knowledge,  and  found  that  I  had 
learned  the  names  of  some  fourscore  new  books  and 
authors  as  well  as  the  difference  in  meaning  between  the 
English  words  "county"  and  "country"  and  "ex 
cellent"  and  "surpassing,"  of  which  latter  I  was  far 
from  certain. 

Fortunately,  there  had  lately  begun  to  appear  a 
whole  crop  of  evening  preparatory  schools  on  East 
Broadway — largely,  no  doubt,  a  result  of  the  league's 
experiment.  They  were  usually  owned  and  manned  by 
young  East-Siders  who  had  recently  graduated  from  the 
City  College.  I  entered  one  of  them  simply  in  order  to 
study  English;  but,  once  there,  my  ambitions  expanded. 
I  recalled  my  father's  professional  hopes  for  me,  and 
conferred  with  my  teachers  about  the  possibility  of 

175 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

preparing  for  a  medical  college.  They  encouraged  me, 
and  I  agreed  to  pay  fifty  dollars  for  the  forty-eight- 
point  Regents'  course  in  monthly  instalments  of  five 
dollars  each. 

The  institution  occupied  the  remodeled  top  flats  of 
two  buildings  on  both  sides  of  the  street.  The  ground 
floor  of  one  of  them  was  occupied  by  a  second-hand 
bookstore,  and  the  basement  of  the  other  housed  a 
butcher  shop.  The  class-rooms  themselves  were  on 
off  nights  the  meeting  places  of  lodges  and  societies, 
and  one  of  them  did  alternate  duty  as  a  chemical 
laboratory  and  a  house  of  worship,  as  the  brass  candela 
bra  and  the  paraphernalia  on  the  east  wall  showed. 

I  used  to  travel  across  the  street  from  algebra  to 
English,  and  back  again  for  German.  The  stoops  and 
the  halls  and  the  stairways  were  always  crowded  with 
students,  and  during  change  of  classes  it  was  almost 
impossible  to  break  through.  I  often  wondered  what 
would  happen  if  there  were  a  fire.  At  last  the  manage 
ment  rented  a  flat  in  a  third  building  and  turned  it 
into  a  waiting-room  and  study-hall.  The  classes  were 
overcrowded,  so  that,  even  with  the  best  instructors, 
anything  like  a  recitation  was  a  practical  impossibility. 

The  evening  was  divided  into  four  periods,  beginning 
at  seven-fifteen  and  ending  at  eleven  o'clock.  As  there 
were  four  Regents'  examinations  annually,  our  school 
year  was  arranged  into  four  corresponding  terms. 
Every  course  ran  through  a  term.  For  instance,  I  took 
algebra  three  times  a  week  for  ten  weeks  and  then  went 

176 


THE    TRIALS    OF    SCHOLARSHIP 

up  to  the  Grand  Central  Palace  and  passed  the  examina 
tion  along  with  high-school  pupils  who  had  had  the 
work  five  times  a  week  for  a  year.  I  cannot  tell  you 
how  we  did  it.  I  only  remember  that  I  would  sit  and 
puzzle  over  x's  and  y's  from  the  time  I  got  home  at 
eleven  o'clock  until  my  eyes  would  give  out;  and  at 
seven  in  the  morning  I  would  be  back  at  the  machine 
sewing  shirts.  I  had  registered  late,  and  had  missed 
the  first  two  or  three  lessons.  For  a  time  the  idea  of 
algebra  simply  would  not  get  through  my  head. 

But  even  algebra  was  as  nothing  beside  English.  We 
were  trying  to  cover  the  prescribed  Regents'  require 
ments,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  us  could 
hardly  speak  a  straight  English  sentence.  The  formal 
grammar,  which  was  the  bugbear  of  nearly  everybody 
in  the  class,  did  not  worry  me.  The  terms  were  the 
same  as  in  Rumanian,  and  I  had  been  well  trained  at 
home.  But  the  classics!  We  began,  mind  you,  with 
Milton.  The  nights  and  the  Sundays  I  spent  on 
"L' Allegro"  and  "II  Penseroso,"  looking  up  words  and 
classical  allusions,  if  I  had  devoted  them  as  earnestly 
to  shirt-making,  would  have  made  me  rich.  And  then 
I  would  go  to  class  and  the  teacher  would  ask  me 
whether  I  thought  there  were  two  separate  persons  in 
the  poems,  or  just  one  person  in  two  different  moods. 
Bless  my  soul!  I  had  not  thought  there  were  any 
persons  in  it  at  all.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that  it 
was  something  about  a  three-headed  dog  that  watched 
at  the  gate  of  Hades,  whatever  that  was.  So  I  would 

177 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

go  back  and  read  those  puzzling  lines  again  and  again, 
in  a  sort  of  blind  hope  that  sheer  repetition  would  some 
how  make  me  understand  them,  until  I  got  them  by 
heart.  I  can  recite  them  yet. 

As  soon  as  I  got  straightened  out  a  bit,  I  tried  to 
take  a  little  interest  in  the  social  life  of  my  school. 
There  was  a  socialist  club,  and  a  zionist  society,  and  a 
chess  club,  and  a  debating  club,  and  I  don't  remember 
how  many  others,  that  sent  their  representatives  around 
with  notices  to  the  grammar  class.  One  of  the  teachers 
was  giving  an  unscheduled  course  in  Greek  between 
six  and  seven,  and  I  joined  it  in  the  hope  that  it  might 
enable  me  to  read  the  dramas  of  Sophocles  in  the 
original.  On  Sunday  nights  the  instructors  took  turns 
in  lecturing  in  the  study -hall  on  the  other  works  of  the 
authors  we  were  studying  in  English  and  German,  or 
on  the  colleges  and  universities  of  America,  or  on  art, 
and  I  was  drinking  in  a  lot  of  things  that  the  radical 
educators  had  omitted.  In  the  debating  society,  too, 
the  subjects  were  a  little  out  of  the  usual.  American 
politics  and  prohibition  and  the  nature  of  the  trusts 
touched  elbows  with  such  familiar  things  as  the  refer 
endum  and  the  initiative  and  the  true  Shakespearian 
conception  of  the  character  of  Shylock;  and  what  I 
particularly  liked  about  the  organization  was  that  it 
gave  greater  opportunities  for  self-expression  (and  in 
English)  than  the  regular  lectures  did. 

My  schooling  brought  a  lot  of  new  problems  with  it, 
and  not  all  of  them  academic.  Some  of  them  were  the 

178 


THE    TRIALS    OF    SCHOLARSHIP 

old,  familiar  ones  with  a  new  wrinkle.  As  a  student 
I  could  not  work  overtime,  and  many  a  row  I  had  with 
the  boss  about  it.  That  meant  a  reduction  in  my 
weekly  envelope  of  about  two  dollars.  There  were  the 
monthly  five-dollar  payments,  and  several  books  every 
quarter,  which,  however,  one  was  not  compelled  to 
buy,  since  the  school  itself  supplied  them  at  a  nominal 
rental  of  ten  cents  a  month  each.  My  room  rent  was 
raised  by  fifty  cents  a  month  to  pay  for  the  midnight 
gas  I  was  burning.  One  had  to  dress  a  little  better, 
and  shave  oftener,  and  pay  club  dues. 

But  all  this  additional  expense  I  could  have  endured. 
It  was  the  match-makers  who  made  day  and  night 
hideous  for  me.  Being  a  prospective  doctor  had  made 
me  quite  a  commodity  in  the  marriage-market.  One 
of  the  men  in  the  factory  called  my  attention  to  the 
fact  that  a  certain  pretty  finisher  had  five  hundred 
dollars  in  the  bank.  An  old  woman  of  my  acquaintance 
hunted  me  up  in  my  room  one  night  after  school  to 
make  me  a  tempting  offer.  She  knew  of  a  rich  jewelry- 
peddler  who  was  ready  to  finance  me  through  college 
on  condition  that  I  become  engaged  to  his  daughter. 
"And  he  is  a  fellow-countryman  of  yours,  too,"  she 
added,  "and  of  such  a  fine  family!  And  the  girl!  A 
jewel  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man.  Full  of  virtues. 
Educated  like  a  bookkeeper.  Reads  German — it  is  a 
joy  to  hear  her;  and  English,  as  if  born  to  it."  And  all 
this  while  I  had  a  load  of  German  and  English  of  my 
own  to  get  through  with  before  morning. 

179 


AN   AMERICAN   IN    THE    MAKING 

Not  only  among  my  own  relatives,  but  in  Little 
Rumania  generally,  I  was  causing  an  immense  furore. 
My  cousins  and  second  cousins  and  aunts  and  uncles, 
to  say  nothing  of  my  brothers,  never  ceased  bragging 
about  my  change  for  the  better.  Even  Couza,  whom 
I  had  not  seen  since  my  barroom  days,  was  pleased,  and 
took  occasion  to  remember  that  he  was  entitled  to 
some  of  the  credit  because  if  it  had  not  been  for  him  I 
would  still  be  in  Vaslui.  Cousin  Jacob,  who  had  in 
the  mean  time  "settled  affairs  "  in  Rumania  and  followed 
his  family,  grinned  with  delight  and  forgave  me  my 
irreligious  practices,  and  declared  that  he  had  always 
known  that  I  would  one  of  these  days  come  to  my 
senses.  Next-door  neighbors  and  fellow-townsmen 
beat  a  path  to  my  hall  bedroom  to  find  out  exactly 
what  profession  I  meant  to  pursue  and  ventured  an 
opinion  as  to  which  was  the  most  profitable  or  the  least 
irksome  or  the  most  elegant.  I  was  set  up  as  an 
arbiter  on  every  variety  of  disputed  question,  linguistic, 
geographical,  legal,  and  what  not.  Was  Minneapolis 
in  the  South?  If  a  chap  had  promised  to  marry  a  girl 
in  Buzeu  and  now  refused  to  marry  her,  could  she  sue 
him  for  breach  of  promise  in  New  York?  Was  the 
dollar-mark  derived  from  U.  S«?  Which  was  right, 
"  myself  "  or  " meself  "  ?  And  if  one,  why  not  the  other? 
Why  could  one  say  "yesterday"  and  not  "yesternight"? 
If  I  confessed  that  I  really  did  not  know  the  answer  to 
all  these  difficult  questions,  then  I  was  told  that  pride 
goeth  before  a  fall,  and  that  I  must  not  get  so  stuck  on 

180 


THE    TRIALS    OF    SCHOLARSHIP 

myself,  or  else  that  I  was  a  queer  kind  of  a  "college 
boy." 

In  January,  at  the  end  of  my  first  three-month  term, 
I  took  the  examinations  in  English,  algebra,  and  third- 
year  German,  and  reaped  five  points.  That  left  ten 
more  between  me  and  college.  Unfortunately,  it  left 
something  more  besides,  which  even  a  conscientious 
student  could  not  get  by  means  of  examinations.  As 
we  drew  toward  the  end  of  our  preparation,  we 
"seniors,"  as  we  were  called,  had  but  one  topic  for 
discussion — how  to  get  into  and  through  college.  I 
cannot  enumerate  half  the  schemes  we  cooked  up. 
Some  of  us  did  more  daring  things  than  marry  pluto 
crats'  daughters.  A  great  number  became  druggists, 
taking  pharmacy  as  a  stepping-stone  to  the  higher 
ambition  because  it  only  required  about  one-fourth  the 
number  of  counts  and  only  one  year  in  college.  I  knew 
several  boys  who  became  conductors  and  robbed  the 
street-railway  companies  of  nickels  until  they  were 
caught  and  discharged,  alas!  too  soon. 

I  myself,  in  company  with  Alfred  (now  Doctor) 
Goodman,  chose  another,  more  difficult,  course.  When 
September  came,  a  year  after  I  had  entered  school, 
I  had  enough  credits  to  enter  college  on  a  condition, 
and,  of  course,  no  money  even  for  the  matriculation 
fee.  Then  Goodman  heard  of  the  State  scholarships 
and  came  and  told  me  about  them.  The  stipend  was 
good  for  four  years'  tuition  at  Cornell  University,  but 
the  scholarships  were  open  to  none  but  high-school 

181 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

pupils.  I  fretted  at  the  loss  of  a  year,  but  there  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  go  to  high  school  and  make  myself 
eligible.  I  remember  the  afternoon  when  Goodman  and 
I  decided  to  go  around  to  the  nearest  high  school  to 
find  out  what  we  had  to  do  to  get  in.  In  our  ignorance 
we  wandered  into  a  girls'  institution  somewhere  on 
Thirteenth  Street,  and  got  laughed  at  at  every  turn, 
and  as  far  as  I  can  now  recall  never  got  as  far  as  the 
principal's  office  at  all.  From  a  policeman  on  the 
street  we  learned  that  what  we  were  looking  for  was  the 
De  Witt  Clinton  High  School,  which  was  a  considerable 
distance  up-town.  There  a  warm-hearted  old  gentle 
man,  whom  I  came  later  to  know  as  Dr.  Buchanan, 
the  principal,  took  charge  of  us,  and  extracted  from  us 
our  entire  personal  and  family  history,  and  gave  us 
several  score  of  cards  to  fill  out,  and  conducted  us  about 
the  building  as  if  we  were  noted  visitors,  and  introduced 
us  to  our  teachers  and  commended  us  to  their  mercy 
because  we  "had  never  seen  the  inside  of  a  public 
school." 

We  were  admitted  to  the  fifth  form,  and  blushed  with 
shame  at  finding  ourselves  in  a  class  with  mere  young 
sters.  The  English  instructor  was  not  much  older  than 
we  were.  On  the  very  first  test  we  were  asked  to  write 
a  hundred  and  fifty  words  on  "School  Spirit,"  and 
Alfred  and  I  exchanged  frightened  glances  and  handed 
in  blank  papers.  But  the  next  day  the  teacher  told  us 
that  we  must  not  be  bashful  when  we  did  not  under 
stand  an  assignment  and  allowed  us  to  take  our  choice 

182 


THE    TRIALS    OF    SCHOLARSHIP 

of  subjects  and  marked  our  substitute  papers  ninety- 
five  and  ninety-eight,  respectively,  and  scribbled 
"excellent"  on  the  margin  for  good  measure.  Things 
did  not  go  quite  so  well,  however,  in  the  other  classes. 
In  the  history-room  the  teacher  was  altogether  helpless 
in  the  hands  of  his  pupils,  and  in  his  misery  he  found 
fault  with  everything  Goodman  and  I  did,  from  the 
manner  of  our  taking  notes  to  our  English  intonation. 
How  those  boys  could  be  so  disrespectful  to  a  learned 
man  our  European  minds  could  not  grasp  at  all.  They 
threw  chalk  at  him  and  at  one  another  as  soon  as  he 
turned  his  back  to  write  on  the  blackboard,  and  cat 
called  him,  and  one  fat  youngster  even  went  to  the 
length  of  getting  up  and  waltzing  around  the  room  in 
the  middle  of  another  boy's  farcical  recitation.  And 
yet,  as  soon  as  they  came  into  the  physics-room,  these 
same  pupils  became  as  meek  as  lambs  and  as  attentive 
as  a  Clinton  Hall  audience. 

We  suffered  so  horribly  under  the  discipline  that  at 
the  end  of  a  week  Goodman  gave  up  the  effort  and 
borrowed  the  money  to  go  to  a  second-rate  medical 
school  where  the  tuition  was  comparatively  cheap.  At 
the  evening  school  there  had  never  been  any  insistence 
on  getting  exercises  and  themes  into  the  hands  of  the 
teachers  at  any  particular  time.  It  was  assumed  that 
the  work  was  done,  as  a  matter  of  course.  If  a  student 
could  not  or  would  not  follow  out  assignments,  he 
naturally  dropped  out  altogether  and  devoted  his 
money  and  his  time  to  more  pleasurable  avocations 

13  183 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

than  going  to  school  after  a  hard  day's  work  in  the 
sweat-shop.  At  Clinton,  however,  nothing  was  taken 
for  granted;  and  I,  who  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of 
doing  lessons  thoroughly  enough,  but  by  the  method  of 
inspiration,  came  into  constant  collision  with  the  more 
conservative  of  my  teachers,  and  was  reported  to  my 
"guardian"  for  insubordination,  and  was  kept  in  the 
detention  room  after  classes  when  I  should  have  been 
out  earning  my  living,  and  was  peremptorily  sent  down 
to  see  the  principal,  who  did  nothing  more  tyrannical, 
however,  than  to  take  me  parentally  by  the  arm  and  to 
tell  me  smilingly  that  he  knew  there  were  more  ways 
than  one  to  kill  a  cat,  and  that  if  I  would  not  tell  it 
"in  Gath"  he  would  confess  to  me  that  he  thought  my 
way  as  efficient  as  any,  but  that,  nevertheless,  I  would 
find  it  beneficial  to  adopt  in  part,  if  I  could,  the  ways  of 
authority.  I  don't  know  how  long  my  tormentors 
would  have  kept  on  worrying  me  if  it  had  not  gotten 
abroad  that  I  had  offered  to  join  the  penal  class  in 
higher  spelling,  of  my  own  free  will,  which  my  task 
masters  accepted  at  once  as  a  submission  and  as  a 
stoic  challenge  to  them  to  do  their  worst. 

Going  to  day  school  necessitated  giving  up  my  shirts, 
which  rendered  the  financial  situation  exceedingly 
tense.  More  than  once  I  lacked  the  car  fare  to  get  to 
the  school  on  102d  Street,  and  then  I  must  either  get 
up  at  five  in  the  morning  and  walk,  or  invent  some 
plausible  but  altogether  untruthful  excuse  and  compose 
a  letter  of  explanation  which  must  be  signed  by  my 

184 


THE    TRIALS    OF    SCHOLARSHIP 

landlady — a  process  that,  no  doubt,  appears  simple 
enough  to  the  uninitiated,  but  was,  all  the  same,  fraught 
with  perils  and  difficulties  because  Mrs.  Schlesinger  had 
neglected  to  acquire  the  art  of  writing,  and  if  I  signed 
it  myself  with  her  name  I  made  myself  liable  to  the 
charge  of  forgery  and  the  criminal  punishments  apper 
taining  thereto.  To  make  ends  meet  I  attempted  a 
return  to  the  familiar  occupation  of  peddling  (on  the 
grand  scale,  with  a  pushcart,  this  time,  and  the  merchan 
dise  second-hand  books  instead  of  sweetmeats)  but 
found  it  less  congenial  and  less  profitable — my  wants 
having  become  extravagant — than  in  the  old  days.  So 
I  advertised  myself,  in  Cousin  Freedman's  coffee-house 
window,  as  a  private  instructor  in  English  and  arithme 
tic.  I  charged  twenty-five  cents  an  hour,  which  would 
have  brought  me  wealth  enough  if  only  the  powers 
above  had  not  cut  the  day  to  a  skimpy  twenty-four 
hours  and  if  the  desire  for  self -improvement  in  Lit 
tle  Rumania  had  not  been  so  scarce.  Time  was 
particularly  at  a  premium,  inasmuch  as  my  pupils  were 
possessed  with  an  excessive  curiosity  about  the  meanings 
of  all  sorts  of  words  that  I  had  not  inquired  into,  so 
that  if  I  prized  my  dignity  and  self-respect  I  must 
devote  hour  for  hour  to  preparing  my  lessons;  and  also 
because  the  ancient  problem  of  distances  had  still  to 
be  solved. 

And  then  when  the  struggle  was  all  over  it  turned  out 
that  I  had  labored  and  suffered  in  vain.  Somehow  I 
had  never  stopped  to  question  my  ability  to  win  the 

185 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

scholarship.  Yet  it  required  only  a  trifling  accident  to 
smash  the  hope  on  which  I  had  staked  everything.  I 
scored  ninety-six  in  English,  and  nearly  as  high  in  all 
the  other  subjects  except  one.  In  physics  I  was 
marked  fifty.  Out  of  four  questions  one  was  on  the 
rainbow  and  another  on  some  species  of  dynamo, 
neither  of  which  topics  had  been  touched  on  at  all  in 
the  class.  A  month  later  I  took  the  Regents'  examina 
tion  in  that  same  subject,  and,  I  believe,  under  the 
same  examiners,  and  passed  "with  honor,"  which 
meant  a  percentage  of  over  ninety.  So  decisive  are 
examinations! 


XVI 

OFF   TO   COLLEGE 

BUT  to  college  I  went  that  autumn,  all  the  same. 
The  examinations  were  no  sooner  over  than  I  gave 
up  my  tutoring  and  my  school  and  began  to  cast  about 
for  something  real  to  do.  I  had  entered  the  high  school 
to  attain  a  particular  object.  It  had  been  defeated; 
but  I  had  got  something  else  in  its  stead.  I  had  im 
proved  my  English ;  I  had  acquired  new  and  more  regu 
lar  methods  of  study;  I  had  completed  my  entrance  re 
quirements,  so  that  I  need  not  worry  now  about  working 
off  "conditions"  in  college.  Still,  there  was  no  sense 
in  keeping  up  the  grind,  even  though  the  authorities 
sent  postal  card  after  postal  card  to  Mrs.  Schlesinger, 
threatening  me  with  the  visitations  of  the  truant  officer. 
They  were  snail-slow  in  that  city  institution.  The 
course  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  finished;  but 
they  were  taking  the  entire  month  from  the  end  of 
May  to  the  last  of  June  to  review  and  "wind  up."  I 
could  do  better  with  those  four  weeks.  Time  was 
precious.  If  I  got  busy  straight  away,  that  very 
month  might  decide  whether  I  should  graduate  in 
1910  or  1911. 

187 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

In  a  financial  sense  I  was  no  better  off  now  than  a 
year  ago — rather  worse,  if  anything.  I  had  not  only 
fallen  behind  by  a  year,  so  that  if  I  entered  college  at 
all  I  would  be  a  freshman  when  Goodman  and  a  lot 
of  others  of  my  companions  would  be  sophomores;  I 
had  missed  the  chance  of  laying  up  some  money  toward 
the  lean  years  that  were  ahead  of  me.  The  failure  to 
earn  the  State  scholarship  I  had  come  to  take  philo 
sophically.  It  merely  prevented  me  from  going  to 
Cornell — the  university  I  had  set  my  heart  on.  But 
that  prize  would,  after  all,  have  paid  only  my  tuition; 
my  living  expenses  I  must  earn  in  any  event.  At  one 
of  the  free  out-of-town  colleges,  to  be  sure,  it  might 
prove  harder  to  find  work.  But  hadn't  I  tried  this 
past  year  to  combine  study  with  business  in  New  York? 
And  with  what  results?  Besides,  college  was  not  high 
school.  By  all  accounts  a  medical  student  had  practi 
cally  no  time  left  when  his  day  in  the  lecture-room  and 
the  laboratory  was  over.  In  a  small  town  there  would 
at  least  be  no  wastage  in  traveling  back  and  forth. 

The  road  to  follow  was,  therefore,  plain:  I  must 
utilize  every  bit  of  the  three  or  four  months  between  now 
and  the  opening  of  college.  How?  that  was  the  ques 
tion.  Ornstein  and  Stein — my  former  employers — had 
a  vacancy  at  the  double-needle  machine.  But  a  week's 
trial  revealed  the  fact  that  shirts  were  going  through 
one  of  their  periodic  slack  seasons  that  summer.  The 
union,  too,  had  disintegrated,  and  piece  prices  were  at 
their  worst.  Just  when  I  was  perfectly  ready  to  work 

188 


OFF    TO    COLLEGE 

overtime  there  was  hardly  enough  to  do  during  the 
day.  A  little  figuring  showed  me  that  at  the  present 
rate  I  would  not  get  enough  together  by  September  to 
pay  even  for  my  trip  to  college. 

Fortunately  my  good  cousin  David  was  an  electrician 
and  was  working  as  a  lineman  at  the  Pennsylvania 
Terminal,  then  building.  I  knew  nothing  about  the 
trade  beyond  a  few  odd  terms,  such  as  "potential," 
"cathoids,"  "alternating  current,"  and  "Leyden  jar," 
which  I  had  picked  up  in  my  study  of  physics,  and 
which  David  did  not  know  and  regarded  as  worse  than 
useless.  Nevertheless,  he  managed  to  get  me  taken  on 
as  his  helper  at  a  wage  of  one  dollar  and  seventy-five 
cents  a  day.  David  was  devoting  his  evenings  to  taking 
care  of  the  tenement-house  he  was  living  in,  and  he 
insisted  that  I  must  come  and  take  a  room  in  his 
apartment.  "You  can  save  about  twenty  dollars," 
he  urged,  "and  it  will  be  no  loss  to  me.  We  have  more 
space  than  we  can  use,  and  I  am  not  paying  any  rent." 
Once  he  got  me  up  there  he  pointed  out  that  there  were 
no  restaurants  in  the  neighborhood  (except  American 
ones,  which  served  food  I  could  not  eat),  so  that  I  must 
eat  at  his  table.  When  the  week  was  up  and  I  asked 
Rose,  his  wife,  to  tell  me  how  much  I  owed  her,  she  sent 
me  about  my  business,  and  added  with  a  laugh  that  I 
could  pay  all  in  a  bunch  at  the  rate  of  ten  dollars  a 
week  when  I  became  a  doctor,  or  I  might  reimburse  her 
by  treating  her  four  children. 

That  David  family  saved  the  situation.     Rose  even 

189 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

persisted,  in  spite  of  all  my  protests,  to  double  the 
number  of  her  husband's  sandwiches,  which  she  packed 
for  him  every  morning  along  with  a  bottle  of  cold  coffee; 
so  that  my  lunch  money  went  likewise  to  increase  the 
great  pile.  David  and  I  had  an  hour  at  noon;  so  I 
carried  a  book  with  me  to  work  every  day  and  employed 
the  better  part  of  the  period  in  going  over  the  English 
and  American  classics  I  had  studied.  Once  one  of  the 
engineers  on  the  job  found  my  copy  of  Emerson's 
Essays  in  the  supply-chest,  and  he  asked  David  whose 
it  was.  My  cousin  pointed  proudly  at  me.  The 
gentleman,  however,  did  not  seem  impressed.  He 
threw  me  a  sidelong  glance  and  smiled  superiorly. 
When  he  was  gone,  David  burst  out  laughing.  "  That's 
a  good  one  on  him,"  he  cried.  "  He  doesn't  know  you 
could  give  him  a  few  pointers.  Why  didn't  you  speak 
up,  you  big  silly,  and  tell  him  that  he  wasn't  the  only 
college  guy  on  the  place?" 

The  whole  world,  however,  is  not  made  up  of  Davids 
and  Roses,  and  my  family  was  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
Looking  ahead,  I  could  see  that  the  dollars  I  was 
saving  would  hardly  suffice  to  carry  me  through.  A 
friend  (who,  for  reason  of  his  own,  must  remain  name 
less)  offered  to  lend  me  fifty  dollars.  But  the  attempt 
to  persuade  my  two  brothers  to  contribute  each  an 
equal  amount  met  with  only  partial  success.  Indeed, 
my  relatives,  who  had  up  to  this  time  been  very  proud 
of  my  ambitions  and  my  achievements,  now  held  up 
their  hands  in  solemn  disapproval  at  my  selfishness.  It 

190 


OFF    TO    COLLEGE 

was  all  very  well,  they  declared,  to  become  a  doctor, 
but  this  business  of  borrowing  money  to  get  there  was 
carrying  matters  to  extremes.  My  cousin,  the  collar- 
maker,  could  not  see  why  shirt-making  was  good  enough 
for  him  and  not  for  me.  Another  cousin  thought  I  had 
enough  education  already.  A  third  was  convinced  that 
I  could  persuade  Mr.  Rockefeller  to  lend  me  the  money. 
Uncle  Berl  confessed  quite  frankly  that  he  had  his 
doubts  about  a  fellow  who  could  not  win  a  paltry 
scholarship  ever  becoming  a  doctor,  anyhow.  Uncle 
Schmerl  equally  as  frankly  laid  it  before  the  whole 
assemblage  that  it  was  a  foolish  thing  to  encourage  a 
poor  boy  to  rise  above  his  kind  so  that  he  might  later 
put  on  airs  and  be  ashamed  of  his  own  kindred. 
Brother  Harry  was  not  so  philosophical  as  all  that,  but 
he  was  intending  to  go  into  business  for  himself. 
Might  it  not  be  best,  he  wanted  to  know,  to  wait  another 
year  and  in  the  mean  time  earn  the  money  at  the 
machine?  Only  gentle  Paul  was  silent  at  the  family 
council — except  to  say  that  as  long  as  he  kept  his  job 
he  would  spare  me  his  dollar  a  week.  But  all  the 
advice  and  the  censure  was  to  no  purpose.  I  had  made 
up  my  mind.  Money  or  no  money,  I  was  going.  My 
earnings  as  an  electrician  would  pay  my  fare.  The 
Lord  might  do  the  worrying  about  the  rest. 

To  my  great  astonishment,  I  discovered  that  even 
my  radical  associates  were  stanchly  opposed  to  my  plans 
and  my  ambitions.  I  had  confidently  expected  that 
they,  at  least,  would  understand  my  longing  for 

191 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

emancipation  and  approve  of  it.  It  was  from  them, 
largely,  that  I  had  got  the  inspiration — the  worship 
of  learning,  the  ideal  of  culture,  the  dream  for  a  higher 
plane  of  life.  They  had  no  illusions  about  the  wretched, 
precarious  existence  of  the  working-man.  They  con 
stantly  lamented  his  lot,  his  oppression  by  the  rulers 
and  capitalists,  his  lack  of  opportunity  to  develop 
himself,  his  imprisonment  in  dingy  lofts  and  airless 
tenements.  Their  newspapers  and  their  lecturers  never 
tired  of  insisting  that  the  liberation  of  the  working-class 
could  only  come  by  education,  and  that  this  education 
must  come  from  within,  from  the  conscious  endeavor 
of  the  proletariat  itself.  Well,  here  I  was  carrying 
their  theories  into  practice.  I  was  going  to  get 
educated,  to  lift  myself  out  of  my  class.  I  was  going  to 
make  my  fight  for  the  freedom  and  the  leisure  and  the 
opportunity  to  develop  which  they  had  taught  me  was 
the  inalienable  right  of  every  man.  Why  should  they 
not  give  me  their  most  enthusiastic  support? 

I  remember  the  stormy  discussion  at  the  anarchist 
reading-room  that  followed  upon  my  announcement. 
Isidore  Lipshitz,  the  cadaverous,  curly-haired  closer, 
who  had  befriended  me  in  the  days  of  my  apprentice 
ship  and  had  witnessed  the  beginning  of  my  career, 
burst  out  into  sarcastic,  fiendish  laughter;  and  Joe 
Shapiro,  affectionately  nicknamed  the  "red  bull," 
jumped  to  his  feet  and  launched  into  a  passionate 
denunciation  of  my  sacrilegious  perversion  of  radical 
principles : 

192 


OFF    TO    COLLEGE 

"The  class-conscious  proletariat  is  no  longer  good 
enough  for  you,"  he  shouted.  "You  want  to  go  to 
college,  to  become  a  gentleman  and  a  bourgeois;  to 
wear  spats,  I  suppose,  and  silk  gloves,  quite  like  a  little 
clodpate.  All  right,  go,  and  the  devil  take  you. 
But" — and  here  he  waved  a  menacing  finger  in  my 
face — "don't  you  come  around  here  and  pollute  this 
place  with  your  infernal  sophistries.  Did  you  hear  that, 
Isidore?  To  our  lecturers  he  compares  himself.  The 
cheek  of  the  nix!  Who  ever  told  you  that  Feigenbaum 
and  Hermalin  and  Liessin  have  gone  to  college?  They 
started  in  the  shop  and  they  have  developed  by  their 
own  brains  and  the  right  kind  of  reading.  But  they 
have  stuck  to  their  class  and  have  devoted  themselves 
to  the  interests  of  the  worker.  They  have  not  tried  to 
climb  in  among  the  church-walkers  and  the  capitalists 
and  the  oppressors.  Traitor!" 

In  vain  I  tried  to  make  myself  heard  and  to  explain 
that  by  getting  a  thorough  education  I  was  serving  the 
best  interests  of  my  class.  As  a  factory  hand,  I  argued, 
all  my  energy  and  struggling  against  a  complex  system 
was  doomed  to  be  unavailing.  They  insisted  that  the 
emancipation  of  the  worker  could  only  come  by  the 
education  of  the  body  as  a  whole,  not  by  the  sporadic, 
selfish  scrambling  out  of  individuals  into  the  ranks  of 
the  oppressors.  My  place  was  in  the  shop,  among  the 
men  and  women  who  were  building  up  the  movement 
with  their  blood  and  their  brains.  They  predicted  that 
no  sooner  would  I  enter  college  than  my  class-conscious- 

193 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

ness  would  melt  away  and  I  would  begin  to  feel  myself 
as  belonging  in  the  camp  of  the  enemy.  My  whole 
course  was  treason  to  the  cause  of  labor.  I  smiled 
incredulously  at  their  passionate  presentiments;  but  the 
event,  as  you  shall  see,  proved  that  they  were  not 
altogether  wrong. 

The  only  person  I  got  any  comfort  out  of  was  Esther. 
She  admitted  that  theoretically  there  was,  no  doubt, 
something  to  be  said  for  the  point  of  view  of  our  radical 
friends,  but  that  in  practice  I  was  entirely  right.  She 
even  found  an  element  of  the  heroic  in  my  undertaking. 
As  long  as  the  world  was  what  it  was  there  was  nothing 
for  the  individual  to  do  but  to  make  the  most  of  his  own 
opportunities.  Besides,  I  was  not  merely  striving  for 
economic  betterment,  if  at  all;  and  it  was  pure  senti 
mental  nonsense  to  raise  objections  against  the  aspira 
tions  of  a  hungry  mind.  About  my  financial  difficulties 
she  was  equally  encouraging.  With  my  energy  and 
my  various  abilities  I  ought  to  have  no  trouble  at  all 
in  earning  all  I  spent,  to  say  nothing  of  my  modest 
hope  of  making  a  dollar  a  week. 

So,  in  the  autumn  of  1906, 1  started  out  on  my  great 
adventure.  Throughout  the  summer  I  had  been  stud 
ying  catalogues  from  all  the  ends  of  the  country  and 
making  the  rounds  of  all  cut-rate  ticket-offices  in  the 
city,  in  an  effort  to  make  my  scant  savings  go  as  far 
as  I  could.  The  New  York  medical  colleges,  with  their 
tuition  rates  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  and  up 
ward,  were,  of  course,  out  of  the  question.  Some  of 

194 


OFF    TO    COLLEGE 

the  State  universities,  I  found,  charged  no  tuition  fees; 
but  a  study  of  certain  tables  contained  in  the  bulletin 
showed  that  the  minimum  expenditure  for  board  and 
room  per  year  was  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars. 
Heaven  preserve  me!  One  hundred  was  my  limit,  and 
I  would  have  to  earn  the  most  of  that.  Therefore, 
even  those  schools  that  promised  reasonable  living 
expenses  had  to  be  passed  up,  as  long  as  their  cata 
logues  said  nothing  about  ways  and  means.  Finally, 
after  two  months  of  figuring  and  comparing,  I  chose  the 
University  of  Missouri.  It  appeared  to  combine  all  the 
advantages  of  economy  with  high  academic  standards. 
I  calculated  that  by  living  at  the  dormitories  and 
boarding  at  the  University  Dining  Club  I  could  make 
an  appreciable  cut  in  my  first  estimate.  Perhaps  I 
could  skimp  through  the  year  on  seventy-five  dollars 
and  pay  my  railroad  fare  with  the  remainder  of  the 
hundred.  And  the  reports  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  made  me 
feel  certain  that  I  could  earn  the  better  part  of  the 
outlay  by  doing  odd  jobs. 

I  did  not  start  from  New  York  until  two  weeks  after 
the  official  opening  of  the  university.  My  experience 
in  the  night  school  had  taught  me  how  to  do  a  month's 
work  in  a  week,  so  that  I  had  no  doubt  of  my  ability 
to  catch  up  with  my  classes.  As  long  as  I  had  a  job, 
I  felt  that  I  ought  to  keep  it  as  long  as  I  could.  Heaven 
alone  knew  when  I  would  have  another.  So  I  worked 
at  the  Pennsylvania  Terminal  until  one  Friday  late  in 
September.  On  Saturday  I  packed  my  belongings, 

195 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

bought  the  return  half  of  an  excursion  ticket  to  St. 
Louis  for  three  dollars  less  than  the  regular  price,  and 
went  around  to  say  good-by  to  my  friends.  Goodman 
gave  me  a  pound  of  Russian  tobacco  and  a  case  of  five 
hundred  cigarettes  from  his  father's  shop.  Esther 
wanted  to  give  me  her  fountain-pen,  but  I  would  not 
let  her,  and  made  her  "accept  my  two  leather-bound 
quarto  volumes  of  Dickens  (left-overs  from  my  book 
selling  venture)  in  gratitude  for  her  confidence  in  me. 
On  Sunday  I  was  off.  My  brothers,  my  cousins,  and 
a  number  of  my  schoolfellows  came  to  the  station.  As 
I  scrambled  into  the  car  with  my  telescope  case  and 
my  big  bundle  of  food  for  the  journey,  the  women-folks 
burst  into  tears.  "Poor  Max!"  they  cried.  "What 
will  become  of  him  out  there  in  the  wilderness,  among 
strangers,  cut  off  from  the  world?"  I  tried  to  smile 
encouragingly,  but  my  heart  was  in  my  throat.  I  was 
to  learn  the  reason  for  those  kind,  silly  tears  soon 
enough.  I  was  going  to  the  land  of  the  "  real 
Americans." 


PART    IV 
AMERICA   OF    THE    AMERICANS 


XVII 

IN   THE  MOLD 

I  AM  sure  that  if  the  immigrant  to  America  were  ever 
to  dream  of  the  things  that  await  him  at  his  journey's 
end  there  would  be  no  need  for  any  laws  to  keep  him 
out.  He  would  prefer  to  eat  grass  and  kiss  the  royal 
scepter  and  stay  at  home.  Any  man,  I  suppose,  with 
a  drop  of  vagabond's  blood  in  his  make-up  and  a  family 
to  support  will,  under  the  stress  of  necessity,  fold  his 
tent  and  move  on  to  greener  pastures;  and  no  human 
soul  will  indefinitely  endure  the  insolence  of  oppression 
without  flaming  into  revolt.  But  there  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  generally  accepted  limit  to  the  price  of  bread 
and  freedom  beyond  which  even  a  hungry  and  a  weary 
voyager,  if  he  retains  a  sense  of  value  and  of  honor,  will 
not  go,  purely  as  a  matter  of  principle.  One  may  be 
willing  to  submit,  with  a  kind  of  grim  cheerfulness,  to 
train-robbers  and  steerage  pirates,  to  seasickness  and 
homesickness,  to  customs  officials  and — though  this  is 
really  too  much — even  to  Ellis  Island  inspectors;  and 
count  the  whole  thing — with  the  heart-wringing  fare 
wells  thrown  in — as  a  tolerably  fair  exchange  for  the 
right  to  live  and  the  means  of  living.  But  no  one,  I 

H  199 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

insist,  would  for  a  moment  consider  the  transaction  if 
he  suspected  that  he  must,  before  he  is  through,  become 
an  American  into  the  bargain.  Mortal  man  is  ready  for 
everything  except  spiritual  experiences. 

For  I  hardly  need  tell  you  that  becoming  an  American 
is  spiritual  adventure  of  the  most  volcanic  variety.  I 
am  not  talking  of  taking  out  citizen's  papers.  It  can 
not  be  too  often  repeated  that  the  shedding  of  one 
nationality  and  the  assumption  of  another  is  something 
more  than  a  matter  of  perfunctory  formalities  and 
solemn  oaths  to  a  flag  and  a  constitution.  Vowing 
allegiance  to  the  state  is  one  thing.  But  renouncing 
your  priceless  inherited  identity  and  blending  your 
individual  soul  with  the  soul  of  an  alien  people  is  quite 
another  affair.  And  it  is  this  staggering  experience  of 
the  spirit — this  slipping  of  his  ancient  ground  from  under 
the  immigrant's  feet,  this  commingling  of  souls  toward 
a  new  birth,  that  I  have  in  mind  when  I  speak  of 
becoming  an  American.  To  be  born  in  one  world  and 
grow  to  manhood  there,  to  be  thrust  then  into  the 
midst  of  another  with  all  one's  racial  heritage,  with 
one's  likes  and  dislikes,  aspirations  and  prejudices,  and 
to  be  abandoned  to  the  task  of  adjusting  within  one's 
own  being  the  clash  of  opposed  systems  of  culture, 
tradition,  and  social  convention — if  that  is  not  heroic 
tragedy,  I  should  like  to  be  told  what  is. 

I  got  to  Columbia,  Missouri,  in  the  evening  two  days 

later.     I  had  written  to  the  president  of  the  university 

200 


IN    THE    MOLD 

to  tell  him  by  what  train  I  would  arrive,  and  I  was  a 
little  taken  aback  to  find  that  he  had  not  even  sent  any 
one  to  meet  me.  There  were  a  lot  of  students  at  the 
station,  but  they  paid  no  attention  to  me.  They  were 
making  a  great  deal  of  noise  and  shaking  hands  in  a 
boisterous  sort  of  way  with  one  or  two  decidedly  rural- 
looking  boys  who  had  come  in  on  the  train  with  me.  I 
began  to  feel  very  lonely.  Yes,  began  was  the  word.  It 
was  to  be  continued. 

My  first  thought  was  to  make  straight  for  the 
university  and  ask  for  the  president.  He  was  the 
only  person  who  knew  who  I  was.  But  inquiry  revealed 
the  fact  that  the  campus  was  a  good  half-mile  from  the 
station,  so  I  decided  to  wait  until  morning.  There 
was  a  house  not  far  away  that  looked  like  my  own  home 
in  Vaslui,  and  it  bore  a  sign  with  the  word  "Hotel" 
over  its  eaves.  I  went  in  and  asked  an  old  negro  about 
a  lodging  for  the  night.  He  said  the  place  was  full, 
and  conducted  me  across  the  street  to  what  he  called 
the  annex.  There  I  was  given  a  room.  In  the  morning 
I  dressed  and  began  to  look  for  the  kitchen.  A  little 
girl  asked  me  whether  I  wanted  breakfast.  I  said, 
"No;  I'll  have  breakfast  after  I  come  back  from  the 
president's  house.  But  where  is  the  sink?  I  want  to 
wash."  It  took  her  some  time  to  understand  me; 
then  she  grinned,  and  pointed  to  a  pitcher  and  bowl  on 
a  little  stand  in  my  room. 

At  the  university  I  learned  that  the  president  was 
out  of  town.     But  a  clerk  told  me,  with  a  twinkle  in 

201 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

her  eye,  that  if  I  wanted  to  be  registered  she  would  show 
me  where  to  go.  At  the  registrar's  office  another  clerk 
surprised  me  by  saying  that  he  remembered  my  name 
quite  well,  because  he  had  got  all  the  letters  I  had 
written  to  the  president,  and  then  astonished  me  still 
more  by  producing  a  folder  which  contained  every  one 
of  them.  He  said,  pleasantly,  that  my  name  was  so 
unusual  that  he  could  not  forget  it,  and  added  some 
other  polite  remarks  about  the  fine  city  New  York  was 
and  his  hopes  as  to  my  happiness  in  Missouri. 

Then  we  got  down  to  business,  and  I  felt  my  heart 
sinking  as  I  watched  my  hard-earned  funds  melting 
away  under  his  efficient  pencil. 

"Let's  see,  your  incidental  fee  will  be  five  dollars; 
biology  lab.,  five  again;  you  are  going  to  take  chemistry 
I — lab.  fee,  ten  dollars." 

I  don't  know  just  where  I  would  have  landed  at  this 
remorseless  rate  if  I  had  not  had  enough  presence  of 
mind  to  interrupt  him  here. 

"You  will  excuse  me?"  I  asked.  "I  am  afraid  I 
shall  have  to  wait  a  little,  until  I  get  some  more  money 
from  New  York,  before  I  go  any  further." 

"Yes?" 

"You  see,  it  is  like  this.  I  was  hoping  that  I  could 
earn  something  first.  Is  there  not  a  Christian  Associa 
tion  that  gets  work  for  students?" 

"Yes.  To  your  right,  in  the  corridor,  as  you  go 
out." 

His  courtesy  made  me  bold.     "You  do  not  suppose 

202 


IN   THE   MOLD 

I  could  arrange  to  make  my  payments  to  the  university 
more  gradually,  say  a  dollar  a  week?"  I  asked. 

He  did  not  know.  He  had  never  heard  of  its  being 
done.  But  I  might  see  the  chairman  of  the  Entrance 
Committee  on  the  next  floor. 

"And  I  am  sorry  to  tell  you,"  he  added,  "that  there 
is  one  other  item  which  I  omitted.  Registration  closed 
a  week  ago.  There  will  be  a  late  registration  fee  of 
five  dollars."  I  could  see  he  was  completely  desolated 
about  my  plight. 

Did  I  have  a  room,  he  wanted  to  know  next.  If  not, 
there  was  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  again,  or  the  bulletin-board  in 
Academic  Hall.  I  would  have  no  trouble  in  finding 
just  what  I  wanted. 

No,  I  had  no  room  as  yet,  but  how  about  Lathrop 
Hall?  I  should  prefer  to  live  in  the  dormitory. 

He  took  me  in  with  a  sidelong  glance.  "I  should  not 
advise  you  to,"  he  concluded.  "You  will  find  the  boys 
a  little  jolly  there." 

"I  do  not  mind  that,"  I  assured  him,  while  my 
thoughts  lingered  anxiously  on  my  resources. 

Well,  there  was  another  difficulty.  Not  being  a 
resident  of  the  State,  I  was  ineligible.  But  I  could 
make  my  money  go  a  long  way  at  the  University 
Dining  Club,  if  I  would  buy  a  permit  for  twenty 
dollars.  Twenty  dollars!  when  I  had  seventeen  in 
the  whole  world. 

So  I  went  around  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  was  told  again 
that  I  was  a  little  late.  Most  of  the  jobs  had  been 

203 


AN   AMERICAN   IN    THE    MAKING 

grabbed  up  weeks  ago.  Likewise,  the  chairman  of  the 
Entrance  Committee  saw  no  way  of  agreeing  to  my 
odd  suggestion  about  easy  payments.  If  I  were  a 
sophomore  he  might  recommend  me  to  the  Loan  Fund 
Committee.  Anyhow,  he  would  see  that  I  "got  back  my 
late  registration  fee  if  I  filled  out  a  blank  stating  the 
reasons  for  my  tardiness.  After  wandering  about  in 
the  buildings  I  came  upon  the  bulletin-board  and 
discovered  scores  of  requests  for  roomers  and  room 
mates  and  "baching  partners."  Here  was  a  ray  of 
hope.  The  majority  of  the  rooms  seemed  to  rent  for 
six  dollars  a  month,  so  that  with  a  room-mate  the 
expense  would  come  to  very  little  more  than  at  the 
dormitory.  But  room-mates,  as  I  was  soon  to  learn, 
were  a  knottier  problem  than  funds. 

I  jotted  down  a  few  addresses  of  boarding-houses,  as 
well  as  the  names  of  several  students  who  announced 
that  they  had  second-hand  books  for  sale,  and  with 
drew  to  the  grounds  to  contemplate  my  situation.  I 
walked  across  to  the  center  of  the  quadrangle  and  sat 
down  with  my  back  against  the  base  of  one  of  the  ivy- 
covered  columns.  Most  likely  they  would  wait  with 
breakfast  for  me  at  the  hotel;  oh,  well,  let  them  wait. 
I  was  in  no  humor  for  food.  My  brain  was  in  a  turmoil. 
What  I  needed  was  air  and  the  power  to  think  straight. 
Now  then,  the  first  step  was  to  clear  out  of  that  dollar- 
and-a-half  house  and  take  up  lodgings,  for  the  time 
being,  in  as  inexpensive  a  place  as  might  be  found. 
Good  economics  told  me  that,  in  spite  of  the  extortionate 

204 


IN    THE    MOLD 

price,  the  permit  to  the  U.  D.  Club  would  prove  a  wise 
investment.  Therefore  the  next  step  was  to  despatch 
a  special-delivery  letter  to  my  friend  in  New  York  for 
the  promised  fifty  dollars.  And,  above  all  things,  I 
must  not  let  the  pessimism  of  the  Y.M.C.  A, office  para 
lyze  my  spirit.  Somehow  I  must  see  the  thing  through. 
If  I  cannot  get  German  translations  I  shall  wash  dishes 
or  clean  shoes  or  peddle  or — 

But  at  this  point  my  ruminations  were  rudely  broken 
into,  and  I  had  my  first  set-to  with  the  American 
reality.  Two  young  gentlemen,  emerging  from  the 
Engineering  Building,  were  making  their  way  toward 
me,  earnestly  conferring  as  they  went.  I  glanced  up 
at  their  faces,  and  told  myself  with  some  trepidation 
that  I  was  in  for  it.  There  was  an  unmistakable 
bellicose  light  in  their  eyes.  What  had  I  done?  Then 
I  heard  one  whisper,  "Go  for  him,  Bud."  My  first 
impulse  was  to  clear  the  field  while  there  was  yet  time. 
But  my  curiosity  got  the  better  of  me,  and  I  waited  in 
suspense  to  see  what  would  happen.  "Bud"  advanced 
with  one  hand  behind  him. 

"Freshman?"  he  asked,  laconically,  as  he  stopped  in 
front  of  me. 

A  happy  inspiration  dashed  the  word  "yes"  from  off 
my  tongue,  and  I  replied  in  the  negative. 

"Soph?"  he  persisted. 

"Yes." 

"Where  from?" 

"Cornell." 

205 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

"Well,  you'll  have  to  get  off  the  mound.  Only 
juniors  and  seniors  can  sit  by  the  columns." 

As  he  walked  away  I  saw  that  he  carried  a  "paddle" 
in  one  hand.  "Hazing" — a  term  I  had  occasionally 
heard  in  high  school — flashed  through  my  mind.  I 
had  saved  the  day,  not  perhaps  by  the  approved  method 
of  open  warfare,  but  at  any  rate  by  perfectly  legitimate 
strategy. 

During  the  remainder  of  that  first  week  in  Missouri 
I  found  out  what  it  was  to  be  a  stranger  in  a  foreign 
land;  and  as  the  year  wore  on  I  found  out  more  and 
more.  Columbia  seemed  a  thousand  times  farther 
removed  from  New  York  than  New  York  had  been  from 
Vaslui.  Back  there  in  the  Ghetto  everybody  had 
thought  me  quite  Americanized.  Now  I  could  not 
help  seeing  that  Missouri  was  more  genuinely  American 
than  the  New  York  I  had  known;  and  against  this 
native  background  I  appeared  greener  than  when  I  had 
landed.  This  new  world  I  had  suddenly  dropped  into 
was  utterly  without  my  experience  and  beyond  my 
understanding,  so  that  I  could  not  even  make  up  my 
mind  whether  I  liked  or  hated  it.  I  had  to  admire  the 
heartiness,  the  genuineness,  and  the  clean-cut  manli 
ness  of  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  prided  itself  on  a 
peculiar  common  sense,  a  cool-headedness,  a  practical 
indifference  to  things  of  the  spirit,  which  the  "intelli 
gent"  of  the  East  Side  in  me  revolted  against. 

Nevertheless,  I  tried  very  hard  to  make  myself 
agreeable  to  my  fellow-students.  But  I  failed 

206 


IN    THE    MOLD 

miserably.  In  the  first  two  months  I  had,  and  lost, 
a  half-dozen  room-mates.  Do  what  I  might,  I  could 
not  make  them  stay  with  me.  There  were  never  any 
hard  words;  we  always  parted  as  "good  friends." 
But  almost  from  the  first  day  they  would  hardly  talk 
to  me,  and  before  the  week  was  out  they  would  find 
some  excuse  for  moving  or  asking  me  to  move.  I  spent 
many  sleepless  nights  trying  to  figure  out  the  thing.  It 
wounded  my  self-esteem  to  find  my  society  so  offensive 
to  everybody.  Besides,  it  touched  my  poor  purse. 
Every  time  I  was  left  alone  in  a  room  I  had  to  pay  the 
full  rent.  But  my  predicament  had  its  comic  side,  too. 
It  got  so  that  when  I  found  a  new  room-mate  I  would 
take  a  perverse  sort  of  pleasure  in  watching  to  see  how 
soon  he  would  begin  to  look  the  other  way  when  I 
spoke  to  him.  I  never  had  to  wait  very  long. 

These  broad  intimations,  so  often  repeated,  should,  I 
suppose,  have  convinced  me  that  I  lacked  the  stuff  of 
which  Missourians  were  made,  and  should  have  served 
to  drive  me  back  into  my  shell.  Whatever  their  reasons 
and  motives  might  be,  it  was  quite  clear  that  these 
fellows  had  no  love  for  my  presence;  and  common 
sense  as  well  as  a  natural  regard  for  my  own  sensibilities 
ought  to  have  told  me  that  the  simplest  way  out  of  my 
scrape  was  to  leave  them  alone.  Besides,  I  may  as  well 
confess  that  this  subtle  distaste — this  deep-lying 
repulsion  of  contrary  temperaments — was  by  no  means 
one-sided.  Perhaps  I  liked  my  elusive  room-mates  a 
little  better  than  they  liked  me.  But  I  possessed 

207 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

enough  of  self-esteem  to  tell  myself  that  this  was  but  a 
proof  of  my  own  superiority.  If  Missouri  did  not  take 
to  me,  I  argued,  so  much  the  worse  for  Missouri's 
powers  of  penetration  and  appreciation.  It  betrayed, 
at  least,  an  extremely  provincial  state  of  mind.  No 
doubt  I  had  my  share  of  damning  imperfections,  but 
even  a  college  freshman,  if  he  had  eyes,  could  see  that 
I  was  not  altogether  wanting  in  the  virtues  that  make 
for  grace.  And  if  they  should  care  to  ask  me,  I  could 
give  these  gentlemen  a  bill  of  particulars  relative  to 
their  own  shortcomings  that  would  take  as  much  of 
their  conceit  out  of  them  as  they  avowedly  persisted 
in  trying  to  knock  out  of  me. 

All  the  same  I  did  not  leave  them  alone.  I  did  the 
very  opposite.  How,  in  the  first  place,  was  I  to  avoid 
them?  I  was  a  lonely,  deserted  rock  surrounded  and 
buffeted  by  a  vast  ocean.  Wherever  I  turned  I  must 
face  them.  If  I  wanted  a  job,  I  must  work  for  and  with 
them.  The  class-rooms,  the  library,  the  boarding- 
houses,  the  very  streets  swarmed  and  echoed  with  them. 
I  had  no  choice  but  to  walk  with  them,  talk  with  them, 
and  trade  with  them.  Nay,  my  case  was  far  worse  than 
poor  Shy  lock's:  I  must  even  eat  with  them  and — at 
brief  intervals — sleep  with  them.  Think  of  it,  an 
entire  university,  yes,  a  whole  State,  stretching  over  a 
hundred  thousand  square  miles,  filled  with  nothing  but 
Missourians!  Of  course,  there  was  one  avenue  of 
escape — I  might  go  back  to  the  Ghetto  in  New  York; 
but  I  was  not  fool  enough  for  that.  Alive  as  I  was  from 

208 


IN    THE    MOLD 

the  very  start  to  his  deficiencies  and  his  foibles,  I  could 
see  that  the  Missourian  had  something  to  teach  me 
that  I  needed  very  badly  to  learn.  In  one  of  my 
earliest  letters  to  Esther  I  wrote:  "I  am  in  an  appalling 
mess,  but  it  will  be  the  making  of  me."  The  sheer 
conflict  somehow  appealed  to  me.  It  was  not  exactly 
any  notion  of  valor,  or  any  shame  at  the  thought  of 
failing  to  see  a  thing  through.  My  bringing  up  had 
bred  very  little  of  the  chivalrous  in  me.  My  friends 
would  never  dream  of  holding  the  failure  against  my 
character.  I  merely  felt  that  the  constant  rubbing  of 
shoulders  with  a  body  of  people  who  were  in  nearly 
every  way  the  opposite  of  myself  was  bound  to  do  me 
good.  Even  if  I  acquired  none  of  the  enemy's  virtues, 
the  contact  with  him  could  do  nothing  less  than  throw 
light  on  my  own  all  too  numerous  weaknesses. 

And  so  I  flung  myself  into  the  battle  with  an  intense 
fury.  I  deliberately  went  out  of  my  way  to  get  stepped 
on.  I  attended  chapel  religiously,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  speeches  bored  me  and  the  prayers  jarred  on 
me.  I  was  punctual  at  meal-time  so  as  not  to  miss  my 
usual  portion  of  sidelong  glances  and  grins  and  open 
ho-hos.  Timid  as  I  was,  I  let  no  opportunity  slip  to 
get  into  an  argument  at  the  cost  of  getting  myself 
thoroughly  disliked.  I  even  went  so  far  as  to  join  the 
cadet  corps,  and  was  bawled  at  by  the  commandant 
(whose  thundering  bass  voice  reminded  me  of  Couza), 
and  was  laughed  at  by  the  members  of  my  platoon  for 
my  unsoldierly  bearing,  and  was  eternally  posted  for 

209 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

soiled  gloves  or  unpolished  shoes  or  errors  in  executing 
commands,  and  was  made  to  write  excuses  (when  I 
would  rather  have  read  Heine  or  Huxley)  for  these 
delinquencies  and  to  rewrite  them  over  and  over  again 
until  they  conformed  precisely  to  military  etiquette, 
and  was  haled  before  the  adjutant  and  bawled  at  some 
more  when  I  revolted  at  the  stupidity  of  it  all,  and  was 
punished  with  extra  drilling  in  the  awkward  squad— 
every  bit  of  which  was  just  what  I  deserved  for  betraying 
my  radical  faith  by  getting  into  the  silly  business  at 
all.  More  than  half  the  time — if  you  will  pardon  the 
unmasculine  confession — I  was  in  the  depths  of  the 
blues,  and  during  at  least  half  of  that  I  was  contemplat 
ing  suicide,  which,  however,  I  took  no  steps  to  commit, 
beyond  the  penning  of  an  exceedingly  vivid  portrayal 
of  the  act,  which  was  perpetrated  with  a  vial  of  deadly 
substances  filched  from  the  chemistry  laboratory,  and 
the  subsequent  regrets  of  my  fellow-students  as  they 
reviewed  the  history  of  their  uncharitable  dealings 
with  me. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  all  my  heroic  suffering  seemed 
to  be  going  for  naught,  at  least  for  a  long  time.  For 
the  principal  problem  that  I  had  set  out  to  solve  re 
mained  as  obstinate  as  ever.  Why  would  not  those 
boys  room  with  me?  To  this  puzzling  question  none 
of  my  disagreeable  adventures  would  furnish  an  answer. 
Of  course,  it  was  quite  clear  they  found  me  a  queer, 
unlikable  animal.  But  I  had  known  that  all  along. 
Why  did  they  not  like  me?  None  of  my  guesses  satis- 

210 


IN    THE    MOLD 

fied  me.  At  the  boarding-house  where  I  stayed  while 
waiting  for  money  from  New  York  I  heard  a  great 
many  stories  in  an  impossible  dialect  about  Jews,  and 
judging  from  the  satisfaction  with  which  they  were 
received  I  thought  at  first  that  I  was  a  victim  of  ancient 
prejudice.  But  I  could  not  long  hold  on  to  that  theory. 
There  was  not  a  trace  of  venom  in  the  yarns.  Why, 
these  chaps  had  not  the  remotest  idea  what  a  Jew  was 
like!  Their  picture  of  him  was  the  stage  caricature  of 
a  rather  mild  individual  with  mobile  hands  who  sold 
clothing  and  spoke  broken  English.  No  one  in  Missouri 
knew  that  I  had  had  Jewish  parents  until  three  years 
later,  when,  on  the  occasion  of  my  graduation,  the 
newspapers  of  St.  Louis  and  Kansas  City  thought  my 
career  of  sufficient  interest  to  have  me  interviewed 
and  I  made  some  passing  allusion  to  my  origin.  No 
more  tenable  was  my  surmise  about  class  antagonism. 
Indeed,  I  was  not  long  in  Missouri  before  I  was  struck 
with  the  absence  of  every  real  class  feeling,  and  I  said 
to  myself,  exultingly,  that  however  America  might  have 
broken  faith  with  me  in  other  ways,  her  promise  of 
democratic  equality  she  had  scrupulously  fulfilled.  To 
be  sure,  there  were  the  fraternities  with  their  vague 
dream  of  building  up  an  aristocracy  on  a  foundation 
of  first-rate  tailoring  and  third-rate  chorus-girls.  But 
they  hardly  mattered.  The  genuine  American  recog 
nized  but  one  distinction  in  human  society — the  vital 
distinction  between  the  strong,  effectual,  "real"  man 
and  the  soft,  pleasure-loving,  unreliant  failure.  As  far 

211 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

as  I  could  judge,  the  "real"  men  were  chiefly  "barbs" 
and  the  failures  (at  least  on  examinations)  were  for  the 
most  part  "hellenes."  If,  then,  my  isolation  rested 
neither  on  race  prejudice  nor  on  class  exclusiveness, 
what  did  it  rest  on?  My  poor,  bewildered  brain  was 
unable  to  answer. 


XVIII 

THE  AMERICAN  AS   HE   IS 

MY  friend  in  New  York,  on  whose  liberality  the 
financial  success  of  my  venture  was  entirely  de 
pendent,  had  not  expected  me  to  get  into  straits  so  soon, 
and  it  was  nearly  two  weeks  before  help  arrived.  In  the 
mean  time  I  had  canvassed  the  labor-market  and  had 
found  it  so  discouraging  that  I  informed  Esther  how 
unjustified  her  optimism  had  been.  A  lot  of  people 
had  taken  my  name  and  address,  but  I  could  tell  from 
the  way  they  looked  at  me  that  my  chances  with  them 
would  be  very  slim  even  if  they  had  not  already  got 
some  one  else.  The  soonest  I  could  possibly  expect  to 
get  employment  was  at  the  end  of  the  semester,  when  a 
number  of  the  present  job-holders  would  be  leaving  the 
university  on  various  missions.  I  had,  also,  caught  up 
with  my  classes,  and  had  succeeded,  somehow,  in  im 
pressing  my  teachers  a  little  more  favorably  than  my 
fellow-students.  In  particular,  I  was  taking  effective 
hold  of  the  work  in  languages,  so  much  so  that  my 
English  instructor  had  twice  read  my  themes  to  the 
class  without  (thank  goodness!)  divulging  my  name. 
My  seventeen  dollars  had  gone  for  books,  incidentals, 

213 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

entrance  fee,  and  board;  and  I  was  now  rapidly  and 
ruinously  running  into  debt,  and  anxiously  inquiring 
at  the  post-office  for  mail. 

When,  at  last,  relief  came  in  an  envelope  with  yel 
low  stamps,  the  first  thing  I  did  was  to  buy  my  permit 
to  the  University  Dining  Club  and  to  secure  myself 
against  the  future  by  paying  for  a  month's  keep  in 
advance.  The  price  for  board,  twenty-one  meals,  was 
one  dollar  and  fifty  cents;  with  the  cost  of  the  permit 
it  amounted  to  about  two  dollars  per  week.  There 
were  between  fifty  and  sixty  tables  in  one  vast  room, 
and  eight  Missourians  at  each  table.  When  the  big 
gong  rang  there  was  a  fierce  scramble  for  places,  followed 
by  a  scraping  of  chairs  and  a  rattling  of  crockery  and 
silverware.  Usually  during  the  noon  meal  the  manager 
of  the  club  would  get  up  to  make  some  announcement, 
and  invariably  he  would  be  greeted  by  yells  of,  "Fire 
away,"  "Jack  Horner,"  "We  want  butter,"  "Can  the 
oleo."  Before  an  athletic  game,  and  particularly  after 
a  victory,  the  rooting  and  the  yelling,  the  pounding  on 
the  tables  and  the  miscellaneous  racket  were  deafening. 
I  thought  I  had  wandered  into  a  barbarous  country.  I 
confess  I  did  not  altogether  disapprove  of  the  bar 
barians.  After  a  while  I  tried  very  hard  to  be  one 
myself.  But  I  did  not  know  how. 

Most  of  the  conversation  at  the  table  and  around  the 
campus  was  about  athletics.  I  wanted  to  talk  about 
socialism,  and  found  that  these  university  men  knew  as 
little  about  it,  and  had  as  dark  a  dread  of  it,  as  the 

214 


THE    AMERICAN   AS    HE    IS 

clodpate  on  the  East  Side.  Religion  was  taboo. 
They  went  to  church  because  it  made  them  feel  good, 
as  they  put  it;  and  there  was  an  end.  They  took  their 
Christianity  as  a  sort  of  drug.  Sex,  too,  was  excluded 
from  sane  conversation,  although  there  was  no  objection 
to  it  as  material  for  funny  stories.  I  went  to  one  or  two 
football  and  basket-ball  games — I  could  not  afford  very 
many — and  liked  them.  But  I  could  not,  for  the  life 
of  me,  say  an  intelligent  word  about  them.  The 
chatter  around  me  about  forward  passes  and  goals  and 
fumbles  might  just  as  well  have  been  in  a  foreign 
language,  for  all  I  got  out  of  it.  When  Missouri  won  a 
hard  victory  over  Texas  I  caught  the  enthusiasm  and 
joined  in  the  shirt-tail  parade,  wondering,  in  the  mean 
time,  what  my  intellectual  friends  in  New  York  would 
have  thought  if  they  had  seen  me  in  that  outfit.  But 
the  hero  worship  bestowed  on  the  overgrown  animals 
who  won  the  battle  irritated  me.  I  could  not  see  what 
place  this  sort  of  thing  had  in  a  university.  And  it 
surprised  and  delighted  me  to  find  that  some  of  the  more 
sensible  fellows,  who  loved  the  game,  took  the  same 
view  of  the  matter  as  I  did. 

I  made  heroic  efforts  to  become  an  adept  in  sports, 
not  so  much  because  the  subject  interested  me,  but 
because  I  did  not  greatly  relish  being  taken  for  a  fool. 
There  could  be  very  little  doubt  but  that  my  table- 
mates  had  made  up  their  minds  that  I  was  one.  No  one 
else  that  they  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of  could  sit  through 
a  meal  the  way  I  did  without  opening  his  mouth,  and 

*5  215 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

that  while  the  calendar  was  crowded  with  "events"  of 
every  kind.  Moreover,  I  knew  but  one  way  to  make 
friends  with  people,  and  that  was  by  the  East  Side 
method  of  discussion.  There  was  no  help  for  it;  I  was 
in  the  enemy's  country  and  I  must  submit  to  his 
tradition  and  his  customs  or  die.  If  he  refused  to  talk 
about  poetry  and  Nietzsche  and  the  Russian  revolution 
and  the  Scandinavian  drama  and  the  class  struggle,  I 
ought,  at  any  rate,  to  be  thankful  that  there  was  at  least 
one  topic  he  was  interested  in.  It  was  not  his  fault 
that  I  had  been  sewing  sleeves  when  I  ought  to  have 
been  playing  ball,  and  that  I  had  gone  to  the  wrong 
kind  of  a  school  for  my  secondary  training,  where  I  had 
been  made  into  a  grind  and  a  bore  and  a  disputatious 
fanatic  when  I  could  just  as  well  have  learned  to  be  a 
level-headed  man  among  men.  It  was  not  yet  too  late, 
fortunately.  The  opportunities  for  rounding  out  my 
,education  were  ample  enough.  I  had  but  to  bring  my 
will  into  play. 

Besides,  the  institution  of  sport  had  begun  to  interest 
me.  No  one  but  an  intellectual  snob  could  remain  at 
Missouri  for  any  length  of  time  without  perceiving  that 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  ball-field  was  something  more 
than  a  mere  fad  or  a  frivolous  pastime.  It  was  a 
highly  developed  cult,  sprung  out  of  the  soil  and  the 
native  spirit,  and  possessed  of  all  the  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  its  type.  It  had  a  hierarchy  and  a 
liturgy  and  a  symbolic  ritual  of  its  own.  What  was  on 
first  impression  taken  to  be  but  an  argot  was  in  reality 

216 


THE    AMERICAN    AS    HE    IS 

a  very  exact  sacred  tongue,  in  a  class  with  the  choice 
Hebrew  which  my  old  rabbi's  wife  in  Vaslui  insisted 
on  talking  on  Saturdays.  A  football  match  in  full 
swing  had  all  the  solemnity  and  all  the  fervor  and  color 
of  a  great  religious  service.  The  band  and  the  songs, 
the  serpentine  processions  and  the  periodic  risings,  the 
mystic  signals  and  the  picturesque  vestments,  the 
obscure  dramatic  conflict  with  its  sudden  flights  and  hot 
pursuits,  the  transfigured  faces  of  the  populace,  the 
intense  silences  alternating  with  violent  outbursts  of 
approving  cheers  and  despondent  groans — all  this  was 
plainly  not  a  game  but  a  significant  national  worship, 
something  akin  to  the  high  mass  and  the  festival  of 
Dionysus. 

What  had  deceived  me  about  the  true  nature  of  this 
thing  at  first  was  that  my  Missourian  professed  devotion 
to  an  altogether  different  creed,  a  creed  which  was  as 
alien  to  his  Western  clime  as  it  was  hostile  to  his  temper 
and  his  aspirations.  Six  days  in  the  week  he  labored 
at  his  field  sports,  and  shouted  from  the  house-tops  his 
pagan  maxim  about  a  sane  mind  in  a  sane  body,  and 
looked  upon  the  world  as  a  fierce  battle-ground  in  which 
every  man  must  grapple  with  his  fellows  and  in  which 
the  victor  was  not  only  the  hero,  but  the  saint  as  well, 
and  resented  the  merest  intimation  of  any  contrary 
doctrine  as  an  insult  to  human  fortitude  and  a  danger 
to  civilization,  and  cultivated  a  strident,  burly,  rough 
masculinity,  and  despised  the  sensitive  and  the  studious 
and  the  idealistic  as  morbid,  effeminate,  chicken- 

217 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

livered  weaklings;  and  then  on  the  seventh  day  he 
suddenly  turned  his  coat  and  changed  his  tune  and 
denied  this  robust  faith  of  his,  and  sighed  about  the 
materialism  of  the  world  and  the  folly  of  man's  desires, 
and  assented  with  bowed  head  and  contrite  heart  to  the 
assertion  that  the  poor  (which  meant  the  weak)  shall 
inherit  the  earth,  and  that  men  are  brothers,  and  that 
God  who  feedeth  the  crow  and  clotheth  the  lily  shall 
feed  and  clothe  also  him,  and  humbled  himself  before 
the  gentle,  impractical  dreamer  of  Nazareth  and  sang 
hymns  to  Him  and  called  Him  Master.  Who  could 
under  such  circumstances  fail  to  arrive  at  the  opinion 
that  if  the  Missourian  was  not  a  hypocrite  he  must  at 
least  be  amazingly  inconsistent? 

Athletics,  however,  was  not  the  only  weak  link  in  my 
chain.  I  was  found  wanting  in  the  most  unexpected 
places.  In  the  class  in  literature  I  frequently  attracted 
attention  by  displaying  all  sorts  of  scraps  of  curious 
knowledge,  as  when  the  instructor  asked  for  a  specimen 
of  Hindu  drama  and  I  volunteered  the  play  of  "Sakun- 
tala,"  or  when,  on  another  occasion,  I  pointed  out  that 
the  German  word  genial  was  in  no  way  related  to  the 
English  word  "genial."  But  when  the  boys  in  the 
house  organized  a  'coon  hunt  and  asked  me  to  join  in  it 
I  had  to  admit  that  I  did  not  know  what  a  'coon  was* 
which  gave  Thompson,  the  wag  of  the  crowd,  an 
opportunity  to  tell  me  that  'coons  were  vegetables,  and 
to  inquire,  in  a  tone  of  mock  surprise,  whether  it  were 
possible  that  I  had  never  eaten  'possum  and  sweet 

218 


THE    AMERICAN    AS    HE    IS 

potatoes.  In  the  work  in  biology  and  physics  the 
things  that  both  teachers  and  text-books  were  taking 
for  granted  as  being  matters  of  common  knowledge 
were  the  very  ones  that  puzzled  me  most.  The  entire 
lore  of  field  and  forest,  of  gun  and  workshop,  was  a 
sealed  book  to  me.  I  could  not  drive  a  nail  into  a 
plank  without  hitting  my  fingers.  What  were  persim 
mons?  How  was  cider  made?  Where  did  the  sorghum 
in  the  pewter  pitchers  that  were  always  on  the  tables  at 
the  club  come  from?  I  had  not  the  faintest  idea.  My 
familiarity  with  trees  stopped  at  the  oak;  my  acquaint 
ance  with  flowers  at  the  rose.  I  did  not  know  how 
to  swim  or  skate  or  harness  a  horse  or  milk  a  cow.  It 
had  never  entered  my  head  that  not  all  clouds  were 
rain-clouds;  that  a  wind  from  the  east  brought  one 
kind  of  weather  and  a  south  wester  another;  that  gales, 
tornadoes,  cyclones,  and  sand-storms  were  as  dis 
tinguishable  from  one  another  as  were  hexameters  from 
alexandrines  and  novellas  from  idyls.  There  were 
apparently  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  were 
discussed  at  Warschauer's  Russian  tea-house  or  in  the 
works  of  insurgent  literati.  Wherefore,  I  must  at 
once  revise  my  opinion  of  the  heathen  in  Missouri  and 
expand  my  notions  as  to  what  constituted  a  well- 
rounded  education. 

My  fellow-students,  having  for  the  most  part  come 
to  the  university  direct  from  the  farm,  were  not  slow 
in  observing  how  ignorant  I  was  of  all  things  agricul 
tural,  nor  in  making  the  most  of  their  discovery.  They 

219 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

found  me  a  godsend  for  their  ready  wit  and  their 
native  love  of  broad  farce.  They  said  I  did  not  know 
the  difference  between  a  hoe  and  a  threshing-machine; 
but  that  was  an  exaggeration.  It  was  true,  however, 
that  I  was  not  sure  whether  it  was  a  pig  or  a  sheep  that 
bleated,  whether  clover  was  a  plant  and  plover  a  bird, 
or  the  other  way  about,  whether  heifers  and  colts  were 
both  or  neither  of  the  genus  bovine,  and  whether 
harrow  and  furrow  were  interchangeable  names  for  the 
same  object  or  were  entirely  separate  things.  I  kept 
talking  of  sowing  corn  until  I  was  told  that  "planting" 
was  the  word.  In  the  Bible  and  in  Shakespeare  I  had 
always  read  about  the  reaping  of  the  grain;  in  Missouri 
they  harvested  the  crops.  I  saw  no  connection  between 
this  gap  in  my  education  and  my  failure  to  make 
friends. 

Then  it  dawned  upon  me  that  one  reason  why  I  could 
not  get  on  with  these  fellows  was  that  I  did  not  speak 
their  language.  Why,  I  had  thought  that  I  was  a 
wonder  at  English.  Hadn't  I  got  the  highest  mark 
in  freshman  composition?  Hadn't  Doctor  Wilbur,  of 
the  English  division,  encouraged  me  to  drop  medicine 
on  the  ground  that  I  was  cut  out  for  a  professorship  in 
that  subject?  Yes;  but  while  I  pronounced  like  a 
native  and  otherwise  spoke  and  wrote  with  considerable 
freedom,  my  English  was  still  the  very  grammatical 
and  very  clumsy  book-English  of  the  foreigner.  I  was 
weak  in  the  colloquial  idiom,  and  always  had  to  resort 
to  roundabout  locutions  to  express  the  simplest  idea. 

220 


THE    AMERICAN    AS    HE    IS 

I  had  mastered  the  science  of  English  speech;  I  had 
yet  to  acquire  the  art  of  it.  My  vocabulary  ran  to  the 
Latin  elements  of  the  hybrid  tongue,  while  what  I 
needed  worst  were  the  common,  e very-day  words.  Of 
course,  the  professors  understood  me,  and  having  some 
how  got  hold  of  the  outlines  of  my  history,  they  even 
commended  me.  But  the  rank  and  file  of  the  student 
body  pricked  up  their  ears  when  I  talked  and  simply 
stared.  Every  time  I  tried  to  tell  a  story  it  fell  flat 
because  of  some  subtle  shade  of  meaning  that  escaped 
me.  My  stock  of  words  and  phrases  was  not  varied 
enough.  I  might  know  one  word  like  "earth,"  whereas 
the  Missourian  had  his  choice  of  "ground"  and  "soil" 
and  "sod"  and  half  a  dozen  others  which  he  could  draw 
on  with  a  sure  hand. 

These  little  difficulties  in  making  myself  perfectly 
understood  had  an  evil  tendency  toward  making  me 
self-conscious  and  aggravating  my  timidity.  I  fell  into 
the  habit  of  studying  out  my  sentences  before  intrusting 
them  to  the  ears  of  my  critical  friends,  with  the  conse 
quence  that  they  turned  out  more  stilted  than  ever.  As 
soon  as  I  opened  my  mouth  I  would  realize,  of  course, 
what  a  bad  job  I  had  made  of  them,  and  then  my 
confidence  would  fail  me,  my  throat  would  get  parched 
and  lumpy,  and  my  interlocutor  would  cry,  "What  is 
it?"  in  such  a  way  as  to  knock  the  bottom  out  of  me 
altogether.  After  a  number  of  experiences  of  this 
harrowing  kind  I  determined  that  my  voice  was  in  need 
of  cultivation  and  I  joined  the  class  in  elocution,  where 

221 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

the  instructor  did  most  of  the  reading  himself — he  had 
once  been  an  actor — and  lectured  interminably  on  deep 
breathing,  and  declared  with  much  emphasis  that  a 
good  delivery  was  essential  to  vivacious  conversation, 
which  was  what  I  knew  myself,  and  that  it  was  largely 
a  matter  of  intelligence,  which  was  not  true.  So  that 
I  dropped  elocution  and  borrowed  a  volume  of  Mark 
Twain  from  the  library  and  read  pages  and  pages  of  it 
aloud  to  myself,  as  every  one  at  M.  S.  U.  who  happened 
to  be  walking  in  the  neighborhood  of  Hinkson  Creek 
before  breakfast  can  testify.  What  is  more,  I  bought  a 
penny  scrap-book  and  jotted  down  every  word  I  over 
heard  in  my  table-mates'  conversation  that  was  new  to 
my  foreign  ear,  and  subsequently  consulted  the  dic 
tionaries  to  find  out  what  it  meant. 

Unfortunately  for  me,  the  men  of  Missouri  had 
command  of  a  whole  vast  and  varied  vocabulary  of 
which  not  a  trace  could  be  found  in  any  dictionary,  no 
matter  how  diligently  I  searched.  It  did  not  take  me 
long  to  lay  hold  of  their  peculiar  trick  of  cutting  words 
off  at  the  end,  and  after  a  month  or  so  I  could  myself 
refer  to  professors  as  "profs,"  to  a  course  in  literature 
as  "lit,"  and  to  the  quadrangle  as  the  "quad."  I 
found  that  highly  practical,  like  everything  else  in 
Missouri,  and  convenient.  But  when  a  chap  asked  me 
to  pass  him  "that  stuff,"  and  pointed  one  day  to  the 
potatoes  and  another  day  to  a  pile  of  typewritten  notes 
I  was  mystified.  I  could  not  easily  perceive  what 
quality  it  was  the  two  commodities  had  in  common  that 

222 


THE    AMERICAN    AS    HE    IS 

made  the  same  name  applicable  to  both.  Moreover, 
I  observed  that  my  friends  expressed  every  variety  of 
emotion — disappointment,  enthusiasm,  anger,  elation — 
by  the  one  word  (or  was  it  two?)  "doggone."  Food  in 
general  was  called  "grub,"  although  gravies  and  sauces 
were  sometimes  distinguished  as  "goo";  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  money  had  a  whole  chain  of  names  to 
itself;  "rocks"  and  "mazuma"  and  "wheels"  and,  of 
course,  "stuff."  It  was  all  very  bewildering. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of 
my  readjustment  was  the  emphasis  that  my  Missourian 
placed  on  what  he  called  good  manners.  I  was  not 
quite  so  obtuse  as  to  miss  the  rather  frank  euriosity 
with  which  certain  details  in  my  conduct  at  table  were 
regarded.  Well,  I  knew  better;  but  it  was  part  of 
my  East  Side  religion  not  to  be  concerned  with  the 
externals  of  conduct.  One  was  in  peril  of  losing  sight 
of  the  essential  and  of  becoming  insincere  as  soon  as 
one  began  to  worry  about  the  correct  thing  and  the 
polite  word.  Once  or  twice  I  succeeded  in  drawing  an 
unwary  freshman  into  an  argument  about  religion  or 
economics,  and  then  I  wished  I  had  not.  His  good 
manners  rendered  him  quite  sterile  as  a  debater.  I 
could  on  no  account  get  him  to  make  a  straightforward, 
flat-footed  statement;  and  he  exasperated  me  by  a 
way  he  had  of  emasculating  my  own  emphatic  assertions 
with  his  eternal  colorless  conformity.  He  invariably 
introduced  a  remark  with  an  "It  seems  to  me,"  or  an 
"It  looks  as  if,"  or  a  "Don't  you  think?"  And  if  I, 

223 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

with  my  ill-breeding,  shot  back  at  him,  as  I  usually 
did,  "No,  I  don't  think  so  at  all;  I  disagree  with  you 
entirely,"  he  looked  grieved  and  surprised  and  visibly 
chilled,  and  crawfished  out  of  the  embarrassing  situa 
tion  by  admitting  that  there  were  two  sides  to  every 
question,  and  that  no  doubt  I  was  right,  too.  And  the 
next  time  he  spied  me  on  the  street  he  suddenly  de 
veloped  a  preference  for  the  opposite  side. 

Did  he  have  manners?  My  father  would  not  have 
thought  so.  How  many  whacks  over  the  fingers  do 
you  suppose  I  got  at  the  family  board  at  home  for 
putting  my  elbows  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  and  for 
inclining  the  soup  bowl  away  from  myself  while 
dipping  the  spoon  into  it  backhand?  It  is  painful  even 
to  recall.  Yet  that  was  precisely  what  they  did  in 
Missouri.  As  for  using  the  fingers  of  the  left  hand  to 
assist  the  fork  in  the  right  in  the  process  of  capturing 
an  obstinate  morsel,  whacking,  in  my  parent's  opinion, 
was  too  good  for  that,  and  nothing  but  chasing  the 
offender  from  the  table  would  suffice.  Yet  that,  again, 
was  what  they  did  in  Missouri.  I  will  say  nothing 
about  tossing  biscuits  across  the  dining-hall  and  such 
like  violent  business,  because,  in  the  first  place,  the  good 
name  of  my  college  is  precious  to  me,  and,  secondly, 
because  that  sort  of  thing  was  never  the  work  of  any 
but  students  of  engineering  or  members  of  the  Hannibal 
Club,  and  these  two  are  not  listed  as  civilized  even  in 
Missouri.  But  I  will  say  something  of  the  practice  of 
parting  with  a  companion  in  the  street  without  wishing 

224 


THE    AMERICAN   AS   HE    IS 

him  good-by,  of  resting  one's  legs  on  the  table  while 
reading,  and  of  whistling  incessantly  inside  the  house; 
and  what  I  will  say  is  this :  that  what  are  good  manners 
in  one  country  are  extremely  bad  manners  in  another. 

The  business  of  introductions  was  my  chief  abomina 
tion.  In  my  little  radical  world  in  New  York  the 
institution  hardly  existed.  If  you  liked  a  person,  you 
went  up  to  him  and  drew  him  into  a  discussion  and 
became  friends  with  him.  If  you  did  not  like  him,  you 
paid  no  attention  to  him.  In  Missouri  this  queer  formal 
ity  was  all  over  the  shop.  Everybody  wanted  to  intro 
duce  you  to  everybody.  They  seemed  to  think  I  would 
take  offense  if  I  was  not  extended  the  dubious  courtesy. 
The  ritual  of  the  performance  would  have  been  a  rich 
source  of  entertainment  to  me  if  I  had  only  had  some  one 
of  my  own  kind  to  share  it  with.  My  gentleman  would 
leap  up,  grab  my  hand  violently,  and,  staring  me  right 
in  the  eye,  exclaim,  "Mighty  glad  to  know  you,  man." 
And  he  expected  me  to  answer  him  back  in  kind.  But  as 
a  rule  I  was  constrained  to  disappoint  him  there,  because 
I  was  not  at  all  glad  to  know  him.  I  was  wishing  that 
I  could  meet  him  on  Eldridge  Street,  where  I  was  at 
home,  and  see  how  he  would  like  that. 

I  suffered  unendurably  from  hunger.  It  took  me 
three  years  to  get  used  to  American  cookery.  At  the 
club  everything  tasted  flat.  I  missed  the  pickles  and 
the  fragrant  soups  and  the  highly  seasoned  fried  things 
and  the  rich  pastries  made  with  sweet  cheese  that  I 
had  been  brought  up  on.  The  breakfast  hour  was 

225 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

outrageous.  In  New  York  I  used  to  drink  coffee  in 
the  morning,  and  then  have  breakfast  at  ten.  Here  I 
had  to  get  down  a  full  meal  at  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  or  starve  until  one.  The  very  order  of  the 
courses  was  topsy-turvy.  At  home  we  began  the  big 
meal  of  the  day  with  radish  or  ripe  olives  or  chopped 
liver  or  fish;  then  we  had  meat  of  one  kind  or  another; 
then  some  vegetables  cooked  sweet  or  sour-sweet,  and 
wound  up  with  soup.  The  Missourian  always  began  at 
the  tail-end — started  with  soup  (when  he  had  any, 
which  was  all  too  rare);  then  piled  his  meat  and 
potatoes  (of  potatoes  he  never  tired)  and  vegetables 
in  several  heaps  all  on  the  same  plate,  devouring  them 
all  together;  and  concluded  the  performance  with  a 
muddy  paste  he  called  pumpkin  pie  and  some  powerful 
beverage  that  passed  for  coffee.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
I  was  so  slow  becoming  an  American  when,  as  every  one 
knows,  nationality  is  principally  a  matter  of  diet,  and 
it  was  this  array  that  I  must  learn  to  cherish? 


XIX 

THE  FRUITS  OF  SOLITUDE 

MY  expense  account  for  1906-07,  which  I  still 
preserve,  along  with  some  choice  compositions,  a 
note-book  or  two,  and  a  gratifying  press-clipping  about 
my  maiden  speech  before  the  Cosmopolitan  Club,  as 
the  precious  mementoes  of  that  incredible  year,  ought 
not  to  be  allowed  to  perish  in  the  dark.  It  should 
certainly  prove  of  inestimable  value  to  certain  extrava 
gant-minded  members  of  the  Committee  on  Student 
Budgets,  by  showing  them  what  really  are  the  possibili 
ties  of  a  minimum  expenditure  for  young  men  in 
"moderate  circumstances."  They  would  learn,  for 
instance,  that  the  item  of  amusements  and  incidentals 
is  capable  of  an  amazing  contraction  from  twenty 
dollars  to  very  nearly  nothing  a  year,  'or  to  be  quite 
accurate,  to  two  dollars  and  twelve  cents,  thus: 
Two  half -pecks  of  apples  30  cents 

Twelve  bananas  12     " 

One  football  game  50     " 

One  basket-ball  game  25     " 

Two  visits  to  the  Nickelodeon      10     " 
Smoking  tobacco  80     " 

One  Christmas-dinner  cigar  5     " 

22? 


AN   AMERICAN   IN   THE    MAKING 

What  a  person  of  more  modest  tastes  than  mine  could 
do  still  further  to  bring  this  elastic  item  toward  the 
absolute  zero  is  an  interesting  question.  It  is  clearly 
not  indispensable  to  the  maintenance  of  life  to  go  to 
moving-picture  houses;  and  as  long  as  the  club  table 
provides  enough  of  bread  and  gravy,  a  consistently 
economical  young  man  with  a  goal  before  him  may 
conceivably  eliminate  such  articles  from  his  diet  as 
bananas  and  apples. 

Still,  I  admit  that  I  was  extravagant  at  times.  Let 
the  next  item  speak  for  itself.  Here  are  stamps,  postal 
cards,  and  correspondence  stationery  to  the  appalling 
amount  of  seven  dollars  and  six  cents!  I  hope  no  one 
will  think  me  lacking  in  a  sense  of  proportion,  but  the 
truth  is  that  if  I  did  not  go  oftener  to  the  games  and  the 
shows  it  was  in  order  to  have  more  money  for  letters. 
It  was  the  only  way  for  me  to  keep  my  soul  alive.  I 
wrote  to  everybody  I  knew  because  I  loved  everybody 
now  who  was  in  New  York.  Sometimes  it  was  business, 
but  the  greater  part  of  the  time  it  was  untainted  affec 
tion.  I  had  to  remind  brother  Harry  several  times  how 
badly  I  needed  those  rubber  shoes  and  socks  he  had 
promised  me.  Cousin  Aby  every  now  and  then  sent 
me  a  few  of  the  radical  papers,  and  I  must  express  to 
him  the  genuine  gratitude  I  felt  for  being  kept  in  touch 
with  the  beloved  world  I  had  left  behind. 

But  the  bulk  of  my  correspondence  was  with  Esther 
and  one  or  two  others  of  my  erstwhile  fellow-students 
in  the  night  school.  It  was  to  get  their  letters  that  I 

228 


THE    FRUITS    OF    SOLITUDE 

regularly  raced  home  to  my  room  between  the  nine  and 
the  ten  o'clock  classes,  and  whether  I  was  bright  or 
stupid  the  rest  of  the  day  depended  largely  on  what  the 
mails  had  brought  me  from  them.  Esther  was  generous 
as  to  length  when  she  did  write,  but  no  amount  of  urging 
could  convince  her  that  a  daily  letter  was  not  too  much. 
Perhaps  if  she  had  known  how  much  such  things  meant 
to  me  she  would  have  come  around.  But  I  did  not 
want  her  to  know.  I  was  half-unconsciously  putting 
the  best  face  on  my  life  in  Missouri.  I  wanted  her  to 
follow  me.  I  wanted  everybody  at  the  Manhattan 
school  to  come  to  Missouri.  Was  it  a  selfish  craving 
for  the  society  of  my  own  kind?  Or  was  it  the  peculiar 
psychology  of  the  whipped  dog  longing  for  the  sight  of 
other  whipped  dogs?  Perhaps.  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
confess  that  I  had  developed  a  kind  of  passion  for 
wanting  to  see  all  my  school  friends  in  my  own  scrape, 
but  I  think  I  am  honest  when  I  add  that  I  was  merely 
hoping  that  it  would  do  them  as  much  good  as  it  was 
doing  me.  And  so  when  Esther's  resolution  seemed  to 
be  on  the  breaking-point  and  she  wrote  me  discouraged 
letters  about  the  terrors  of  geometry  and  the  heartless- 
ness  of  examiners  I  assumed  the  schoolmasterly  tone 
and  scolded  her  for  her  lack  of  persistence  and  held  out 
glowing  pictures  to  her  of  the  rewards  that  were 
awaiting  her  at  the  end  of  her  struggles.  And  I  was 
right,  too— about  Esther,  at  any  rate.  For  the  follow 
ing  autumn  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  her  in 
Missouri,  where  she  still  remains — as  happy  an  Ameri- 

229 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

can  as  ever  came  from  Rumania.  Of  the  three  or  four 
whom  I  succeeded  in  bringing  out  she  was  the  only 
one  who  stuck  it  out;  the  others  maintained  that  they 
could  see  no  fun  in  the  thing. 

No,  there  was  not  much  fun  in  being  made  into  an 
American.  I  was  painfully  aware  of  that  fact  myself. 
Oh,  the  dreary  loneliness  of  it!  Particularly  the 
Sundays.  Of  all  the  days  in  the  week  they  were  the 
hardest  to  live  through.  The  very  holiday  tone  in  the 
air  was  suffocating  me.  Everybody  else  was  busy  and 
outrageously  happy  on  Sunday.  The  boys  in  the  house 
went  to  church  in  the  morning,  wrote  letters  in  the 
afternoon,  and  went  calling  in  the  evening.  I  was  left 
all  alone.  There  was  not  even  any  mail.  The  library— 
the  only  place  where  I  could  still  feel  a  sense  of  human 
contact — was  closed.  But  there  were  whole  seasons 
that,  if  anything  could,  surpassed  even  those  intolera 
ble  Sundays.  At  Christmas  nearly  every  fellow  went 
home  to  his  family,  there  was  an  exchange  of  presents 
and  cheerful  wishes,  invitations  were  extended  to  "good 
chaps"  to  come  and  partake  of  turkey  and  mashed 
potatoes  at  the  homes  of  their  friends;  and  then  for  an 
entire  fortnight  the  town  looked  deserted,  and  I  was 
almost  the  only  boarder  left  at  the  club. 

I  have  an  idea,  for  instance,  that  I  was  not  par 
ticularly  fond  of  the  jams  and  the  cakes  and  the 
fudge  that  a  lot  of  the  boys  brought  home  with  them 
from  their  week-end  trips  to  the  farm.  If  I  recall 
aright,  I  had  more  than  one  taste  of  them;  for  those 

230 


THE    FRUITS    OF    SOLITUDE 

queer  fellows  were  absurdly  generous  in  their  own 
surprising  way.  First  they  would  destroy  my  appe 
tite  for  food  by  some  thoughtless  remark  and  the 
next  moment  they  would  ask  me  to  partake  of  their 
dainties  with  a  "Help  yourself"  which  it  was  impossible 
to  misunderstand.  Ah,  well,  I  had  eaten  better  things 
in  my  day.  And  yet  I  envied  them  their  "goodies." 
I  often  thought  that  it  would  be  a  jolly  thing  to  have  a 
mother  on  a  farm  somewhere  and  to  have  her  bake  and 
boil  things  and  pack  them  into  one's  suit-case  while 
one  went  out  into  the  barn  and  inquired  about  the 
health  of  the  newest  calf  or  the  old  rheumatic  dog. 

And  I  sometimes  even  had  an  odd  wish  that  I  could 
be  a  "Christian."  What  did  it  matter,  after  all,  that 
they  took  on  faith  so  many  unreasonable  things,  or 
said  they  did;  and  worshiped  Jesus  as  a  pale  divinity 
while  denying  His  fierce  humanity;  and  coddled  them 
selves  into  a  belief  in  a  second  and  much  longer  and 
rather  emasculated  existence?  When  one  came  right 
down  to  it,  it  was  really  immense  for  a  religion — this 
Christianity,  with  its  couples  and  its  Easter  bonnets, 
its  socials  and  its  watches,  its  clear-headed  emphasis 
on  the  things  of  this  world,  its  innocent,  child-like 
hoydenism.  If  I  had  been  born  into  any  one  of  the 
many  indistinguishable  varieties  of  this  faith,  I  often 
asked  myself  would  I  have  turned  against  it?  Possibly 
not;  but  all  the  same  I  did  not  often  go  to  church. 

And,  of  course,  I  did  not  go  calling  at  all.  Missouri 
is  a  coeducational  university,  but  it  might  just  as 

16  231 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

well  have  been  a  monastery,  for  all  the  social  good 
it  did  me.  When  my  ways  and  my  personality  were 
finding  so  little  favor  with  the  men,  my  chances  of 
making  friends  with  the  women  were,  as  you  may  well 
imagine,  very  scant  indeed.  Now  and  then,  in  the 
course  of  a  recitation,  I  might  get  a  whispered  distress 
call  from  a  young  lady  whom  fate,  in  the  person  of  the 
professor,  had  surprised  in  the  midst  of  other  thoughts; 
occasionally  in  the  library,  too,  such  a  one  might,  with 
a  gracious  smile,  ask  for  assistance  in  the  preparation 
of  her  English  theme.  But  when  she  next  saw  me  on 
the  street  or  about  the  campus  she  betrayed  no  sign  of 
recognition.  Even  those  who  had  formally  met  me  at 
the  Deutscher  Verein  and  had  professed  to  be  pleased 
to  make  my  acquaintance,  seemed  unaccountably 
eager  to  sever  that  acquaintance  as  soon  as  the  meeting 
was  over.  Their  conduct  toward  me  was  a  painful 
mystery.  It  struck  me,  with  my  East  Side  notion  of 
frankness,  as  needlessly  insincere.  Why,  I  wondered, 
don't  they  come  out  openly  and  tell  me  when  I  displease 
them?  And  I  wanted  very  much  to  be  friends  with 
them.  Their  interests  were  much  finer  than  the  men's, 
and  their  appreciation  of  literature  was  keener.  I 
would  have  given  a  great  deal  for  the  privilege  of  calling 
on  one  of  a  few  girls  I  had  observed  in  class,  to  take  a 
walk  with  her,  and  have  a  discussion  in  the  good  old 
style  of  East  Broadway. 

Yes,  it  was  dreary,  but  it  was  far  from  dull.     I  had 
but  to  take  a  glance  into  myself  to  find  excitement 

232 


THE    FRUITS   OF    SOLITUDE 

a-plenty.  Solitude  had  its  compensations,  like  every 
thing  else.  For  one  thing  I  was  learning  the  valuable 
art  of  enjoying  my  own  company.  Back  in  the  Ghetto 
there  had  come  a  time  once  when  it  was  a  positive  tor 
ment  to  remain  alone.  If  there  was  not  a  gathering 
somewhere,  if  no  one  came  to  see  me,  I  must  at  least 
run  down  into  the  teeming  streets  and  mingle  with  the 
throngs  and  feel  the  pulse  of  people  about  me.  If  I 
could  not  see  an  "intelligent"  I  might  walk  into  a 
kazin  and  have  a  chat  with  a  fellow- Vasluiander.  Here 
there  was  hardly  any  escape.  The  presence  of  the 
crowd  was  only  a  stimulant  to  my  wistful  thoughts. 
The  gay  laughter,  the  companionable  groups,  the 
beaming  couples,  only  made  me  feel  lonelier  than  ever. 
In  sheer  self-defense  I  tried  for  a  time  to  delude  myself 
with  a  consolation  picture  of  the  Missourian  as  a  cold, 
unsympathetic  dog.  I  pounced  on  his  intense  anti 
social  individualism,  his  worship  of  the  strong  man,  his 
devotion  to  the  ideal  of  personal  success  at  all  costs,  his 
sneering  indifference  to  the  unspeakable  miseries  of  the 
black  man  in  his  midst,  his  lack  of  interest  in  inter 
national  matters,  his  snobbish  disregard  of  the  claims 
of  the  worker;  and  told  myself  that  a  fellow  who 
walked  about  the  world  in  that  kind  of  thin  shoes  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  give  much  sentimental  thought 
to  the  rather  minor  woes  of  a  moping,  hypersensitive 
individual  who  had  chosen  to  thrust  himself  his  way. 
It  was  a  tremendous  relief  to  think  of  him  in  this  way, 
as  a  monstrous  device  of  wood  and  steel,  inasmuch  as  it 

233 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

did  away  with  the  need  of  further  thinking  and  removed 
the  unpleasant  business  of  self-criticism.  But  the 
picture  would  not  hold  its  color,  and  kept  gradually 
fading  away  before  the  light  of  facts.  Willy-nilly,  I 
must  admit  that  there  was  an  openness,  a  freedom,  yes, 
even  a  delightful  warmth  and  charm — a  distinctive 
kind  of  pioneer  neighborliness — in  the  social  atmosphere 
of  Missouri  which  was  altogether  unique  in  my  ex 
perience.  The  very  individualism  of  these  people  was 
in  reality  an  emphasis  on  the  happiness  of  the  single 
life.  They  were  far  from  unsympathetic  among  them 
selves,  and  anything  but  cold  even  toward  the  complete 
stranger.  When  I  spent  a  day  at  the  infirmary  the 
whole  crowd  from  the  house  and  the  table  turned  out 
to  see  me  and  poked  fun  at  my  grippe  and  (there  was 
no  escaping  it)  at  myself.  They  made  a  religion  of 
personal  decency.  No,  it  would  not  do.  Unpalatable 
as  the  truth  was,  there  was  no  evading  the  patent  fact 
that  if  I  was  not  taken  in  among  the  Missourians  the 
fault  was  with  me  and  not  with  them. 

With  this  uncompromising  confession  came  unex 
pected  relief.  I  was  floundering  in  the  dark  as  you  see, 
grappling  with  my  obstinate  problem  like  a  miner  with 
out  tools  and  without  a  lantern.  But  having  made  up 
my  mind  that  I  was  not  a  victim,  but  an  unconscious 
comedian,  it  behooved  me  to  stand  before  the  glass  and 
enjoy,  if  I  might,  my  own  amusing  antics.  Once  I 
admitted  that  I  really  was  material  for  sport,  the 
logical  thing  was  to  try  and  see  some  of  it  myself, 

234 


THE    FRUITS    OF    SOLITUDE 

perhaps  to  do  something  in  the  way  of  toning  it  down 
a  bit.  And  so  there  followed  a  pitiless  dissecting  of  the 
internal  man,  a  dragging  out  into  the  light  of  layer  upon 
layer  of  incrusted  self,  a  lining  up  for  inspection  of  a 
whole  vast  procession  of  things — antiques  from  Syria, 
heirlooms  from  a  long  exile  in  Asia  and  Europe,  shards 
and  fragments  of  a  proud  and  broken  ancestry,  warped 
bits  of  thin  veneer  from  Rumania,  heavy  plate  from  the 
radical  Ghetto,  gems  and  rubbish  without  end.  I  took 
in  the  exhibition  with  mingled  feelings,  and  asked  myself 
incredulously  whether  all  this  was  what  I  had  been  used 
to  calling  my  simple  self.  The  more  I  contemplated 
it  the  more  I  felt  inclined  to  be  struck  with  the  oddity 
of  it.  If  that  was  what  my  American  neighbors  had 
in  mind  when  they  talked  of  taking  the  conceit  out  of 
me,  they  were  coming  very  near  to  accomplishing  their 
purpose.  Another  glance  and  I  would  be  grinning  at 
the  pile  myself.  I  was  being  threatened  with  a  novel 
thing  for  an  East-Sider — a  sense  of  humor. 

Quite  as  novel,  and  as  a  further  result  of  my  solitude, 
was  the  opening  of  my  eyes  to  the  unsuspected  miracles 
about  me.  Both  in  Rumania  and  in  the  Ghetto  nature 
was  looked  upon  as  either  vermin  or  vegetable,  a  thing 
to  hold  your  nose  at  or  to  devour.  As  a  child  I  had 
exhibited  a  fondness  for  animals;  but  when  my  father 
once  found  me  playing  with  our  neighbor's  dog  he  took 
me  into  the  house  and  made  it  very  clear  to  me  how  un- 
Hebraic  my  conduct  had  been.  Such  things,  he  told 
me  earnestly,  were  of  the  Gentile,  and  a  good  child 

235 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

of  our  tribe  should  shun  them.  On  the  East  Side 
people  did  frequently  take  excursions  to  the  neighboring 
parks,  but  the  real  attractions  were  oftener  the  lecture 
that  went  with  the  picnic  and  the  stores  of  assorted 
food  than  the  loveliness  of  the  landscape.  So  here 
again  was  a  ragged  edge  to  my  training. 

As  the  dreary  months  dragged  on  I  took  to  wandering 
out  into  the  country.  At  first  my  chief  aim  was  to  run 
away  from  the  house  and  my  own  unpleasant  thoughts. 
But  it  was  impossible  to  roam  over  the  pretty  hills 
around  Columbia  for  very  long  without  falling  under 
their  spell.  I  walked  for  the  most  part  at  night,  when 
my  lessons  for  the  next  day  were  done,  and  I  found  my 
self  becoming  enchanted  with  its  myriad  mysteries. 
The  fragrance  of  the  damp  earth,  the  rustle  of  the 
wind  in  the  leaves,  the  murmur  of  brooks,  the  scintillat 
ing  fires  of  innumerable  glow-worms,  the  soothing  feel 
of  dew-filled  cool  grass,  the  sweep  of  clouds  over  the 
moon,  the  far-off  voices  of  beasts  and  men — all  these 
were  filtering  into  my  soul  and  making  me  into  a  new 
being. 

My  enforced  exclusiveness  served,  also,  to  advance 
me  in  my  studies.  My  professor  of  English  has  prob 
ably  never  found  out  why  I  was  so  prompt  with  my 
papers,  when  the  majority  of  the  class  had  to  be  urged 
and  threatened  and  often  penalized  to  make  them 
bring  theirs  in  on  time.  Well,  what  else  was  there  for 
me  to  do  when  there  were  no  girls  to  call  up  and  no 
chums  to  come  and  drag  me  away  to  parties  and  things? 

236 


THE    FRUITS    OF    SOLITUDE 

Besides,  I  had  for  years  looked  forward  to  this  oppor 
tunity  when  time  and  command  of  the  language  might 
adhere  to  make  extensive  reading  possible.  On  the 
East  Side  literature  had  consisted  almost  entirely  of 
the  insurgent  moderns,  interspersed  with  a  few  choice 
English  writers  like  Carlyle,  Shelley,  and  Shakespeare, 
whom  we  also  regarded  as  "among  our  own."  Now 
with  the  aid  of  the  courses  I  was  coming  upon  whole 
continents  of  undiscovered  books,  and  I  threw  myself 
with  a  navigator's  zest  into  the  joyous  task  of  explora 
tion.  I  was  filling  note-books  with  exercises  in  style 
based  on  Stevenson  and  Hazlitt;  I  was  coming  back  to 
my  old  enemy  Milton  and  reveling  in  Paradise  Lost; 
and  I  was  devouring  the  great  critics  in  order  to  obtain 
guidance  for  further  voyages.  Moreover,  there  was 
German  literature — a  planet  in  itself.  A  class  reference 
had  directed  me  to  the  hundred-and-thirty-odd-volume 
collection  of  the  Deutsche  National  Literatur,  and  I 
actually  undertook  to  go  through  the  whole  thing  from 
beginning  to  end. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  looked  as  if  I  might  yet 
work  out  my  salvation  if  only  those  barbarians  would 
leave  me  to  myself.  But  it  was  not  in  them  to  do  that. 
They  seemed  to  be  determined  on  disturbing  my  peace 
of  mind.  They  were  devoting,  I  honestly  believe,  all 
their  spare  thoughts  and  all  their  inventive  genius  to 
thinking  up  ways  of  making  me  uncomfortable.  One 
young  gentleman,  still  reminiscent  of  my  ignorance  of 
rural  things,  made  up  a  tale  of  how  I  went  to  get  a  job 

237 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

on  a  farm,  and  proceeded  to  relate  it  at  the  table. 
"The  farmer  gave  Max  a  pail  and  a  stool  and  sent  him 
out  to  milk  the  cow.  About  an  hour  later,  when  the 
old  boy  failed  to  show  up  with  the  stuff,  Reuben  went 
out  to  see  what  was  the  trouble.  He  found  his  new 
assistant  in  a  fierce  pickle.  His  clothes  were  torn  and 
his  hands  and  face  were  bleeding  horribly.  'What  in 
heck  is  the  matter?'  asked  the  farmer.  'Oh,  curse  the 
old  cow !'  said  Max, '  I  can't  make  her  sit  on  that  stool.' ' 
A  burst  of  merriment  greeted  the  climactic  ending,  al 
though  the  yarn  was  a  trifle  musty;  and  the  most 
painful  part  of  it  was  that  I  must  laugh  at  the  silly 
thing  myself. 

It  was  not  at  all  true,  as  one  of  my  numerous  room 
mates  tried  to  intimate,  that  I  shunned  baths.  I  was 
merely  conservative  in  the  matter.  One  day,  however, 
he  had  the  indelicacy  to  ask  me  the  somewhat  personal 
question  whether  I  ever  took  a  bath;  and  I  told  him, 
of  course  rather  sullenly,  that  I  did  once  in  a  while. 
Some  time  later  I  overheard  him  repeat  the  dialogue 
to  the  other  men  in  the  house  and  provoking  shouts  of 
laughter.  It  puzzled  me  to  see  where  the  joke  was,  until 
I  learned  that  these  fellows  were  taking  a  shower-bath 
at  the  gymnasium  every  day.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
that  was  running  a  good  thing  into  the  ground.  Again, 
I  noticed  that  my  room-mates  were  making  a  great 
show  of  their  tooth-brushes.  They  used  them  after 
every  meal  and  before  retiring — as  the  advertisements 
say — and  always  with  an  unnecessary  amount  of  splash 

238 


THE    FRUITS    OF    SOLITUDE 

and  clatter.  At  home  I  had  been  taught  to  keep  my 
mouth  and  teeth  clean  without  all  this  fuss.  Never 
theless,  I  thought  that  I  would  get  a  brush  and  join  in 
the  drill.  After  that  the  other  brushes  became  notice 
ably  quiet. 

And  then,  of  course,  there  was  the  institution  of  the 
practical  joke.  On  April  1st  there  was  soap  in  the 
pie.  If  you  got  in  late  to  a  meal,  it  was  wise  to  brush 
your  chair  and  "pick  your  bites,"  if  any  bites  were  left. 
If  not,  there  was  no  telling  what  you  might  swallow  or 
sit  on.  More  than  once  I  tasted  salt  in  my  water  and 
pepper  in  my  biscuits.  I  seemed  to  have  been  marked 
from  the  first  as  a  fit  subject  for  these  pranks. 

On  Hallowe'en  a  squad  of  cadets  commanded  by  a 
corporal  entered  my  room  and  ordered  me  to  get  into 
my  uniform,  shoulder  my  gun,  and  proceed  to  the 
gymnasium,  which,  according  to  the  order  read,  the 
commandant  assigned  me  to  guard  against  stragglers. 
I  guarded  through  a  whole  uneventful  night.  Toward 
morning  the  captain  of  the  football  team,  who  had  a 
room  in  the  gymnasium,  returned  from  a  party.  I 
ordered  him  to  halt  and  give  the  password.  He 
smiled  and  tried  to  enter.  I  made  a  lunge  for  him, 
and  would  have  run  my  bayonet  through  him  if  he  had 
not  begun  to  laugh.  "Go  on  home,  you  poor  boy," 
he  said.  "They  pull  that  stunt  off  every  year.  Poor 
joke,  I  think."  The  next  day  my  table-mates  tried  to 
jolly  me  about  it.  They  said  I  would  be  court- 
martialed  as  a  deserter  from  duty.  I  got  angry,  and 

239 


AN   AMERICAN    IN   THE   MAKING 

that  made  them  all  the  more  hilarious.  Then  a  great, 
strapping  fellow  named  Harvey  spoke  up.  "Be  still, 
you  galoots,"  he  said  to  them;  and  then  to  me,  "For 
gosh  sake,  fellow,  be  human!"  I  tried  a  long  time  to 
figure  out  what  he  meant  by  "human,"  and  for  the  rest 
of  my  college  career  I  strove  hard  to  follow  his  advice. 
It  was  the  first  real  hint  I  had  got  on  what  America, 
through  her  representatives  in  Missouri,  was  expecting 
of  me.  Harvey  became  my  first  American  friend. 


XX 

HARVEY 

1WAS  still  at  the  stage  where  one  American  looked 
and  acted  exactly  as  every  other,  and  it  was  a  pro 
found  mystery  to  me  how  I  had  gained  the  favor  of  this 
very  representative  specimen  of  the  type.  I  had  not 
greatly  changed,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  between  Sep 
tember  and  February,  unless  it  was  for  the  worse.  If  I 
had  only  had  one  or  two  of  my  own  people  and  had  not 
been  in  such  dire  need  of  human  fellowship,  I  doubt 
whether  I  should  have  been  attracted  to  him,  notwith 
standing  the  fact  that  I  owed  him  a  debt  of  gratitude 
for  having  taken  up  the  cudgels  in  my  behalf.  But  he 
was  a  long  way  from  being  hard  up  for  company.  I 
walked  home  with  him  from  the  club  that  night,  and  I 
observed,  with  a  feeling  mingled  of  envy  and  admi 
ration,  that  he  was  cordially  greeted  by  almost  every 
one  that  passed  us,  and  during  the  half-hour  that  I 
remained  in  his  room  he  must  have  had  a  dozen  friends 
dropping  in,  who  were  as  amazed  to  find  him  hob 
nobbing  with  me  as  I  was  myself. 

My  surprise  at  his  unaccountable  behavior  toward 
me  reached  a  climax  when,  a  few  days  later,  he  asked  me 

241 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

to  come  and  live  with  him.  "Captain,"  he  said,  "you 
and  I  are  pretty  much  in  the  same  boat.  If  you  want 
an  old  lady  let's  get  together."  I  could  scarcely  believe 
my  ears.  What  could  he  be  up  to?  I  wondered  as  soon 
as  my  first  flush  of  joy  at  his  offer  had  passed.  Some 
new  variety  of  practical  joke  that  I  had  not  yet  ex 
perienced?  Or  was  it  really  possible  that  I  was 
"arriving"  in  Missouri?  Be  his  scheme  what  it  might, 
I  felt  a  great  temptation  to  accept.  But,  remembering 
my  long  record  of  failures  as  a  room-mate,  I  hesitated 
lest  my  new-found  friendship  (if  it  was  friendship) 
should  go  on  the  rocks.  "I  should  like  to,"  I  said, 
"but  I  think  I  had  better  not." 

Then  Harvey  told  me  some  things  about  himself 
that  opened  my  eyes  and  reassured  me.  I  had  thought 
that  I  was  the  only  one  at  Missouri  who  did  not  know 
where  his  next  week's  board  was  coming  from,  and  that 
every  one  else  belonged,  as  they  had  warned  me  in  the 
Ghetto,  among  the  capitalists.  But  this  fellow,  who 
was  in  his  own  country,  it  turned  out,  was,  if  any 
thing,  poorer  than  I.  He,  too,  had  come  to  college  from 
the  ranks  of  the  worker.  He  was  toiling  nights  and 
vacations,  and  paying  ten  per  cent,  compound  interest 
on  periodic  borrowings,  to  get  an  education  which  he, 
like  myself,  had  been  struggling  for  years  to  attain. 
That  was  what  he  had  in  mind  when  he  said  that  we 
were  in  the  same  boat.  In  addition,  we  had  various 
and  sundry  interests  in  common.  As  far  as  my  observa 
tion  could  determine,  he  was  the  only  freshman  I  had 

242 


HARVEY 

run  into  who  cared  anything  about  reading  as  a  recrea 
tion.  He  was  intending  ultimately  to  go  into  engineer 
ing,  but  he  was  taking  courses  in  the  languages — a  rare 
procedure  in  Missouri.  "Cultural  value" — a  phrase  I 
had  not  often  heard  in  the  past  five  months — kept 
continually  recurring  in  his  remarks  about  studies. 
And,  best  of  all,  he  confessed  to  a  weakness  for  argument 
about  religion  and  other  matters  which  was  as  convinc 
ing  as  it  was  irresistible. 

From  the  first  our  relations  were  those  between 
master  and  disciple.  Much  as  I  had  longed  all  these 
weary  months  for  some  one  who  could  understand  me, 
it  was  not  Harvey's  intellectual  ^and  liberal  leanings 
that  I  prized  in  him  most.  In  September  it  might 
have  been  different.  But  now  I  had  definitely  settled 
down  to  the  role  of  a  captive  in  a  foreign  land;  I  had 
almost  learned  to  endure  the  personal  inconveniences 
of  my  situation;  and  I  was  determined  that  I  must 
bring  away  something  in  the  nature  of  a  system  of 
Missouri  philosophy  for  the  edification  of  the  people 
at  home  when  the  time  came  and  I  regained  my  liberty. 
Harvey  was  the  man  to  help  me  compass  this  purpose. 
For  all  his  unexpected  divergencies  from  the  rank  and 
file,  I  could  not  help  regarding  him  as  a  kind  of  epitome 
of  the  national  character.  He  knew  the  speech  and 
the  customs,  the  heart  and  the  soul,  of  the  native. 
Between  him  and  his  friends  I  should  have  no  difficulty 
in  piecing  out  a  life-size  portrait  of  the  creature. 

The  differences  began  to  crop  up  between  us  right 

243 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

i 
away.     Out  of  the  countless  discussions  with  which 

we  beguiled  the  Sunday  evenings  (Harvey  did  not  go 
"calling"),  one  inescapable  conclusion  emerged — that 
whatever  was  sacred  to  me  was  anathema  to  him  and 
that  everything  that  he  accepted  as  unquestioned  truth 
was,  to  say  the  best  for  it,  a  string  of  dubious  common 
places  to  me.  He  had,  for  instance,  worked  all  his 
adult  life  with  his  hands,  but  he  distrusted  the  organiza 
tions  and  the  hopes  of  the  laboring-man.  He  was  a 
churchman,  and  he  looked  now  to  the  parson  and  then 
to  the  successful  business  man  to  regenerate  the  earth, 
if,  indeed,  this  perfect  earth  needed  regenerating. 
There  was  something  positively  religious  in  his  worship 
of  success  in  the  abstract.  Given  success,  he  seemed  to 
feel,  and  all  the  other  virtues  in  the  book  must  follow 
as  a  matter  of  course.  The  man  who  had  risen  to  the 
top  could  not  but  be  good  and  clean  and  sane  and  self- 
controlled  and  clear-sighted  as  to  the  true  values  of 
life.  He  was  not  only  the  strong  man,  but  the  bene 
factor  of  the  race  as  well.  In  some  mysterious  manner 
he  was  fulfilling  the  divine  purpose  while  pursuing  his 
own  interests.  The  reason  why  America  was  great 
was  because  she  had  the  wisdom  to  give  free  rein  to  the 
ambitions  of  the  individual.  The  country  had  been 
made  by  its  big  men. 

To  me  all  this  was  not  only  far-fetched,  it  was 
contradictory  from  Harvey's  own  point  of  view.  For 
my  good  friend's  conduct  belied  his  philosophy;  and, 
what  is  more,  in  his  better  moments  he  openly  pro- 

244 


HARVEY 

fessed  devotion  to  a  set  of  principles  which  were  the 
direct  opposite  of  the  thirty-nine  articles  of  success. 
These,  I  thought,  he  lived  up  to  with  a  rigidity  born 
of  natural  instinct  and  conviction.  He  abhorred  im 
modesty,  self-advertising,  aggressiveness,  show,  the 
cold  insistence  on  literal  justness — in  short,  the  major 
qualities  by  which  commercial  success  is  made  possible. 
I  was  constantly  learning  from  him  the  excellent  habit 
of  giving  in  when  I  was  right,  of  declining  the  things  that 
were  my  due,  of  minimizing  instead  of  exaggerating 
my  own  virtues  and  little  superiorities.  When  Harvey 
got  some  new  clothes  and  I  praised  them  he  blushed 
(the  burly  giant)  and  waved  me  aside  with  a  deprecating 
hand.  If  I  said  of  a  theme  of  his,  "That  is  a  neat  piece 
of  work,  colonel,"  he  said,  "Get  out,  you  don't  call 
that  English." 

Once  we  bought  a  peck  of  apples  in  partnership  for 
thirty-five  cents.  I  hesitated  a  moment  whether  to 
give  him  seventeen  or  eighteen  cents  as  my  share  of 
the  outlay,  and  then  generously  decided  to  make  it 
eighteen.  Harvey  tossed  the  pennies  back  and  said, 
"We'll  call  it  square,  old  gas-pipe."  When  I  suggested 
dividing  up  the  fruit  he  gave  me  a  queer  glance  and  then 
took  a  few  handfuls  and  left  me  nearly  two-thirds  of 
the  peck.  I  had  thought  he  would  count  them  and 
pick  out  the  biggest  ones.  I  was  using  his  shoe-blacking 
and  my  East  Side  sense  of  strict  dealing  told  me  that 
I  ought  to  pay  for  it.  But  when  I  offered  Harvey  a 
nickel  he  refused  it,  and  when  I  insisted  on  his  taking 

245 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

it  he  simply  told  me  that  I  might  buy  the  next  can. 
The  idea  had  never  occurred  to  me. 

But  he  was  not  consistent  even  in  his  magnanimity. 
There  seemed  to  be  a  shadow  line  somewhere  in  his 
system  where  self-denial  ended  and  self-assertion  began, 
or,  as  he  expressed  it  once,  where  a  fellow  must  stop 
giving  in  because  the  other  side  was  doing  the  taking 
in.  I  do  not  know  whether  he  still  remembers,  but  I 
certainly  have  not  forgotten  the  incident  of  the  fountain- 
pen.  I  must  say  that  it  was  not  I  who  had  asked 
Harvey  to  let  me  use  it.  But  he  must  have  observed 
that  I  had  none  and  that  I  was  having  a  struggle  with 
an  old-fashioned  wooden  penholder  I  had  brought  from 
New  York,  and  so  one  night  he  suggested  that  I  might 
see  what  I  could  do  with  his  fountain-pen.  "May  I?" 
I  asked.  "Sure.  Go  ahead.  Help  yourself ,  any  time," 
he  said.  I  used  it  three  or  four  times,  and  then  I  noticed 
that  the  thing  had  disappeared  from  the  table.  Why? 
Clearly  I  had  abused  the  privilege.  But  he  had  said 
"any  time,"  hadn't  he?  Now  in  the  Ghetto  no  one 
would  have  granted  any  such  unlimited  rights  to  private 
property,  but  once  one  had  committed  himself  he  would 
have  stuck  it  out  to  the  end.  In  Missouri  the  rule 
seemed  to  be  that  you  can  have  anything  as  long  as  you 
don't  ask  for  it,  and  that  as  soon  as  you  have  accepted 
a  liberal  offer  too  literally  you  have  really  forfeited  your 
privileges ! 

Not  more  than  three  days  after  this  subtle  lesson  I 
engaged  a  laundress  to  call  for  my  clothes.  By  the 

246 


HARVEY 

time  she  appeared  for  my  first  batch  I  had  come  upon 
another  woman  who  charged  more  reasonably  and  had 
given  the  work  to  her.  Harvey  was  in  the  room  when 
the  original  woman  showed  up,  and  I  could  see  that  he 
was  listening  with  disapproval  to  what  I  was  telling 
her.  As  soon  as  she  was  gone  he  opened  fire  on  me. 
"Confound  you,"  he  said,  "why  did  you  do  that?" 
"Well,"  I  answered,  "I  changed  my  mind.  Haven't  I 
a  right  to  do  that?"  "Yes,"  he  retorted,  "but  you 
could  have  let  her  know."  I  was  about  to  answer  him 
that  he  might  practise  what  he  preached,  but  it  occurred 
to  me  that  perhaps  the  American  logic  made  a  distinc 
tion  between  room-mates  and  laundresses  and  between 
fountain-pens  and  soiled  linen,  and  I  said  nothing. 

My  confusion  was  increasing  from  day  to  day,  and 
largely  because  Harvey  and  his  friends  worshiped 
simultaneously  at  two  distinct  and  opposed  shrines. 

Harvey  had  a  discerning  ear  for  music  and  played 
the  fiddle  with  considerable  skill.  I  envied  him  the 
accomplishment  both  because  it  enabled  him  to  earn 
money  more  easily  than  I  did  and  because  he  got  no 
end  of  fun  out  of  it.  And  yet  it  was  a  curious  thing 
that  my  friend  was — I  do  not  know  what  else  to  call  it — 
ashamed  of  his  talent.  When  we  were  alone  he  fondled 
his  instrument  as  a  loving  mother  fondles  a  child,  and 
played  everything  from  college  songs  to  nocturnes, 
and  studied  little  booklets  on  the  art  of  bowing  and  what 
not.  But  as  soon  as  his  Missouri  friends  came  in  to 
see  him  he  either  put  the  beloved  thing  into  its  case  and 

17  247 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

hid  it  in  the  closet,  or,  if  he  was  caught  red-handed,  he 
took  on  a  sheepish  air  and  spoke  condescendingly  of  it 
as  a  frivolous  diversion,  and  struck  up  "Turkey  in  the 
Straw"  or  "The  Arkansas  Traveler."  Why?  I  made 
bold  to  ask  him  once,  and  his  answer  was  more  absurd 
than  his  conduct.  He  said,  "It  is  thought  a  bit 
effeminate  for  a  man  to  care  for  music."  I  could  not 
forbear  a  glance  at  him  as  he  said  it;  and  the  incongruity 
of  this  six-footer  with  his  huge  hands  and  powerful 
frame  worrying  his  head  lest  he  should  not  be  thought 
masculine  enough  made  me  laugh  in  his  face. 

But  Harvey  knew  his  people  better  than  I  did.  That 
wholesome  manliness  which  I  had  so  sincerely  admired 
on  arriving  at  Columbia  had  a  worm  at  its  root.  It 
was  the  fashion,  you  see*  to  be  masculine  in  Missouri, 
and  when  a  thing  becomes  fashionable  it  ceases  to  be 
genuine.  Those  whom  nature  had  endowed  with  the 
virtue  made  a  fetish  and  a  self-conscious  pose  of  it, 
and  those  who  lacked  it  became  obsessed  with  the 
desire  to  imitate  it.  The  final  insult  to  a  Missourian 
was  to  suggest  that  he  was  "sissified."  There  was 
something  like  a  panic  among  the  more  refined  of  my 
fellow-students  at  the  mere  mention  of  effeminacy. 
Even  the  girls  dreaded  it.  They,  too,  affected  a  kind 
of  factitious  burliness,  a  worship  of  the  strident  male, 
a  hail-fellow-well-met  air.  They  liked  to  greet  one 
another  with  the  jolly  halloo,  and  the  slap  on  the  back, 
and  betrayed  an  odd  fondness  for  the  big  sweater  and 
the  heavy  boot  and  the  words  "fellow"  and  "bully." 

248 


HARVEY 

The  mania  was  having  its  effect  on  the  course  of  study 
and  the  whole  life  of  the  university.  The  departments 
of  the  arts  were  thrown  on  the  defensive.  The  professor 
must  adopt  an  apologetic  tone  for  being  interested  in 
such  unmanly  things  as  poetry,  music,  or  painting. 
Sentiment  being  tabooed  as  effeminate,  it  followed 
inevitably  that  whatever  in  the  curriculum  addressed 
itself  to  the  emotions  must  be  avoided  like  a  plague. 

In  speaking  of  his  friends  Harvey  constantly  alluded 
to  "broads"  and  "narrows."  There  was  Lowry,  who 
never  failed  to  remind  us  that  the  particular  sect  to 
which  he  belonged  was  the  only  true  Christian  body 
because  its  bishops  had  been  the  recipients  of  the 
apostolic  touch  from  the  beginning  of  the  world.  Lowry 
was  narrow,  it  appeared.  On  the  other  hand,  Higgins 
and  Moore  were  broad,  and  Harvey  advised  me  to 
cultivate  their  acquaintance.  I  tackled  first  one  and 
then  the  other,  and  found  that  they  were  not  averse 
to  discussion  even  about  religion.  But  as  soon  as  I 
betrayed  myself  by  questioning  the  validity  of  the  more 
fundamental  doctrines  of  theology  they  informed  me 
that  certain  things  had  better  not  be  touched.  "Broad 
ness"  seemed  to  consist  in  being  tolerant  toward 
Presbyterians  if  you  were  a  Methodist,  or  toward 
Baptists  if  you  were  a  Congregationalist. 

Some  of  those  boys,  on  the  other  hand,  presented  a 
problem  of  another  kind  that  baffled  me  for  a  long  time. 
When  I  solved  it  I  had  taken  one  more  step  toward 
becoming  an  American.  It  was  true  that  /  mowed 

249 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

lawns,  and  washed  dishes,  and  waited  on  tables,  and 
did  a  score  of  other  odd  jobs  to  make  ends  meet;  but, 
then,  I  was  an  immigrant  without  parents  and  without 
resources.  If  I  had  the  means,  I  thought,  I  would 
rather  not  engage  in  all  these  extra-mural  activities, 
and  devote  all  my  time  to  study  and  recreation.  But 
among  the  other  dish-washers  at  the  club  I  learned  there 
were  young  men  whose  fathers  had  large  farms  or  big 
businesses  in  the  little  towns.  Why,  I  wondered,  did 
they  not  support  their  sons  through  college  decently? 
Then  I  made  the  interesting  discovery  that  they  did 
not  want  to  be  supported;  that  not  to  be  supported 
was  their  idea  of  going  through  college  decently.  I 
revolved  that  idea  through  my  head  until  I  got  it. 
It  showed  me  the  Missourian  in  a  new  light.  I 
could  almost  forgive  him  his  indifference  to  radical 
discussions. 

If  I  was  by  degrees  being  turned  into  an  American 
my  friend  and  room-mate  was  learning  a  few  things 
about  the  Ghetto  and  finding  them  not  half  so  repulsive 
as  he  had  thought.  On  several  occasions  Harvey  lis 
tened  with  interest  to  excerpts  from  Yiddish  literature 
which  I  translated  for  him  from  periodicals  and  pam 
phlets  I  had  brought  with  me.  Now  and  then  my 
brother  Paul  sent  me  a  few  choice  morsels  from  home- 
Rumanian  pastrama,  or  cheese,  or  ripe  olives,  and  it  was 
gratifying  to  observe  that  Harvey  smacked  his  lips 
after  sampling  them.  Toward  the  end  of  the  winter 
we  had  definitely  formed  the  habit  of  having  midnight 

250 


HARVEY 

spreads,  which  never  came  at  midnight,  because  Harvey 
was  subject  to  a  peculiar  failing  of  getting  hungry  by 
nine  o'clock,  which  he  justified  by  declaring  that  it 
required  more  fuel  to  run  a  big  engine  than  a  small 
one.  I  also  taught  him  to  drink  tea  made  and  served 
in  the  Russian  way.  Harvey  supplied  the  alcohol- 
burner  and  the  pot  and  I  furnished  the  tea;  and  every 
night,  just  when  I  thought  he  was  in  the  thick  of  his 
mathematics  or  German,  he  would  suddenly  look  up 
and  give  me  a  significant  wink.  Then  I  would  look 
blank  and  he  would  smile  encouragingly  and  enlighten 
me  further  by  the  monosyllable  "feast."  If  I  still 
failed  to  rise  to  his  enthusiasm,  he  would  say  "  Shall  we?  " 
and  before  I  could  answer  he  would  make  a  dash  for  the 
corner  of  the  room  called  the  kitchen,  and  .spread  a 
newspaper  at  one  end  of  the  table,  and  announce  in  a 
falsetto  voice  that  supper  was  served. 

On  Saturday  afternoons,  if  there  was  no  play  in  town 
that  week,  and  Harvey  did  not  have  to  go  to  orchestra 
rehearsals,  we  would  go  out  on  the  back  lot  with  a  ball 
and  a  glove  and  I  would  revive  an  art  I  had  not  prac 
tised  since  childhood.  But  the  ball  was  much  harder 
than  the  kind  I  had  known  in  Vaslui,  and  my  hands 
would  get  black  and  blue  after  an  hour's  catching,  and 
Harvey  would  laugh  every  time  I  let  a  "hot  one"  pass 
without  making  an  effort  to  stop  it,  and  tell  me  that  the 
essential  thing  in  becoming  an  American  was  to  get 
toughened  up.  When  the  baseball  season  opened  he 
took  me  with  him  to  one  of  the  games,  and  explained  its 

251 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

mysteries  to  me,  and  spoke  enthusiastically  of  its  science 
and  said  that  it  was  the  only  real  national  sport.  At 
which  I  had  to  smile,  because  it  was  the  very  game  we 
used  to  play  at  home — only  we  called  it  "oina" — with  a 
ball  made  of  rags  and  pieces  of  board  torn  out  of  fences 
for  bats.  And  as  I  looked  around  me  and  saw  dignified 
professors  and  rheumy-eyed  Civil  War  veterans  tossing 
their  hats  in  the  air,  I  wished  that  my  father  could  be 
present  so  that  I  might  convince  him  of  the  profound 
truth  I  had  failed  as  a  boy  to  get  through  his  head,  that 
an  "oina"  was  a  joy  forever  and  not  the  silly  childish 
thing  that  he  insisted  it  was. 

Gradually,  too,  Harvey  was  getting  acquainted  with 
my  past  history  and,  much  to  my  amazement,  approv 
ing  of  it.  Once  when  I  begged  him  not  to  let  the 
details  of  my  career  go  any  farther  he  looked  at  me  in 
astonishment  and  called  me  a  fool.  "You  deserve  all 
the  credit  in  the  world,  you  bloomin'  idiot,"  he  added. 
Evidently  he  regarded  my  sweat-shop  experiences  in 
the  light  of  heroic  deeds.  And  thereafter  he  made  it  a 
point  to  let  every  one  of  his  friends  know  just  the  kind 
of  marvel  his  queer  room-mate  was,  and  they  also — 
"narrows"  and  "broads"  alike — appeared  to  think  the 
better  of  me  for  my  humble  past  and  to  show  more 
cordiality  toward  me  when  they  passed  me  on  the  street. 
"Odd,  isn't  it?"  I  kept  thinking.  Intellectually  I 
would  probably  have  felt  more  at  home  in  a  European 
university.  But  supposing  even  that  any  one  could 
have  leaped  from  the  sweat-shop  to  college  over  there, 

252 


HARVEY 

would  his  fellow-students  have  forgiven  him  his  origin, 
to  say  nothing  of  praising  him  for  it? 

What  Harvey  could  not  forgive  me,  and  what  came 
very  near  to  wrecking  our  friendship,  was  what  he 
termed  my  "contemptible  habit"  of  smoking  ciga 
rettes.  At  first  I  thought  that  the  odor  of  tobacco  was 
offensive  to  him,  and  put  myself  to  the  inconvenience 
of  going  out  of  the  house  whenever  I  felt  the  desire  for 
a  smoke.  But  my  pains  seemed  to  go  for  naught;  our 
relations  remained  as  strained  as  ever.  "What  is  the 
objection?"  I  finally  asked  him.  "Oh,  nothing,"  he 
answered,  "if  you  can't  see  for  yourself  how  picayune 
and  insignificant  the  pesky  things  make  you  look." 
More  masculinity,  I  reflected,  and  asked  some  one  in 
New  York  to  send  me  a  pipe,  adding  that  cigarettes  were 
not  in  fashion  in  Missouri.  Then  I  found  that  I  had 
hit  upon  another  snag  in  the  American  character,  for 
Harvey  apparently  relished  my  pipe  even  less  than  he 
did  the  cigarettes.  Surely,  I  asked  myself,  a  pipe  was 
not  effeminate?  No,  indeed.  But  the  whole  business 
of  smoking  revealed  a  deplorable  moral  degeneracy.  It 
was  one  of  the  habits  that  break  as  opposed  to  the  habits 
that  make,  as  one  of  those  curious  composite  doctor- 
preachers  who  kept  constantly  resorting  to  the  uni 
versity  and  talking  to  men  only  neatly  expressed  it. 
Not  exactly  masculinity,  then,  but  success. 

My  experiences  with  Harvey  and  with  Americans 
generally  have  bred  in  me  the  conviction  that  no  one 
should  be  granted  citizen's  papers  unless  he  can  "see" 

253 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

a  joke.  A  man  has  not  even  begun  the  process  of 
readjustment  as  long  as  he  still  stares  blankly  at  the 
sallies  of  native  humor;  and  it  goes  without  saying  that 
the  simplest  as  well  as  the  most  conclusive  test  as  to 
whether  a  foreigner  has  acquired  anything  like  a 
respectable  command  of  English  lies  along  the  line  of 
the  "story."  You  may  read  and  enjoy  Shakespeare  or 
Emerson;  you  may  write  a  first-rate  business  letter  in 
English;  you  may  be  an  enrolled  Republican  or 
Democrat;  but  all  this  avails  you  nothing,  and  in  your 
heart  of  hearts  you  are  a  hopeless  alien.  Even  an 
interest  in  outdoor  sports  is  no  convincing  proof  that 
you  are  naturalized.  It  may  be  faked.  Do  you  go 
wild  over  Bill  Nye's  History  of  the  United  States?  Do 
you  laugh  till  the  tears  run  down  your  face  at  Mark 
Twain's  description  of  a  Turkish  bath?  Do  you  turn 
to  the  next  to  the  last  column  on  the  editorial  page  of 
the  evening  paper  and  devour  that  before  you  even  think 
of  the  sporting  page,  let  alone  the  news?  Above  all, 
can  you  do  your  share  at  the  dinner-table  or  at  the 
marshmallow  party  when  conversation  becomes  feeble 
and  some  one  proposes  "stories"?  Then  you  are  an 
American  to  the  bone,  I  don't  care  how  much  you  may 
believe  in  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  in  secret  diplo 
macy.  In  America — or  at  least  in  Missouri — every  one 
is  a  wit,  or  tries  to  be.  No  one  says,  simply,  "Pass  me 
the  salt."  What  he  says  is,  "May  I  crave  the  saline 
or  the  NaCl?"  just  as  no  one  asks  you  where  you  live, 
but  where  is  your  habitat  or  domicile.  An  American 

254 


HARVEY 

will  not  talk  or  write  a  personal  letter  unless  he  can  be 
funny.  It  is  an  excellent  national  trait.  It  makes 
conversation  breezy.  But  I  think  it  often  makes  it 
scarce. 

I  owe  it  to  Harvey  (who  did  not  have  to  try  to  be  a 
wag)  that  I  made  this  jolly  American  characteristic, 
among  many  others,  in  part  my  own.  Indeed,  any 
inventory  of  my  first  year  at  college  will  reveal  an 
astonishing  list  of  things  over  and  above  what  I  had 
started  out  to  get.  The  university  catalogue  omits 
quite  as  much  as  it  includes.  It  makes  absolutely  no 
mention  of  the  unofficial  extension  courses  under 
Professor  Harvey,  of  the  practical  joke  as  an  educa 
tional  method,  and  of  the  special  department  of  personal 
relations  for  the  benefit  of  foreign  students.  The 
peasant  in  Rumania  says  very  truly  that  one  never 
knows  what  kind  of  bargain  he  is  going  to  make  until 
he  gets  to  market.  I  had  gone  to  Missouri  to  become  a 
doctor.  But  Joe  Shapiro  was  a  real  prophet.  Those 
capitalists  and  oppressors  were  making  me  into  a 
gentleman. 


XXI 

THE   ROMANCE    OF   READJUSTMENT 

AS  the  summer  drew  near  I  began  to  look  around  for 
XX  something  to  do.  I  would  spend  nearly  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars,  I  saw,  between 
September  and  June,  and  half  of  it  borrowed  money. 
Harry,  from  whom  I  had  got  almost  no  help  the  first 
year,  had  just  married  and  gone  into  business  for 
himself,  and  he  was  giving  me  to  understand  in  very 
broad  hints  that  I  need  not  rely  on  him  the  next  year. 
Brother  Paul  had  been  out  of  work  for  the  better  part 
of  the  winter,  and  was  trying  desperately  to  keep  alive 
while  paying  off  some  of  the  debts  he  had  made  in  his 
period  of  unemployment.  My  friend,  who  had  more 
than  lived  up  to  his  promises,  had,  to  be  sure,  agreed 
to  lend  me  fifty  dollars  every  year,  but  I  was  endeavor 
ing  to  bring  him  out  to  Missouri,  and  if  I  succeeded  he 
would  need  all  he  had  to  pay  his  own  way.  Therefore, 
if  I  meant  to  return  to  school  next  year  I  must  find  a 
way  to  earn  enough  to  give  me  at  least  a  good  start  in 
the  fall.  I  discussed  the  question  with  Harvey  and  he 
made  several  suggestions.  He  himself  was  going  to 
Joplin,  where  there  was  a  lot  of  building  and  where  he, 

256 


THE    ROMANCE    OF    READJUSTMENT 

being  a  carpenter,  always  found  plenty  to  do.  I 
might  come  along  with  him,  and  try  my  luck  in  the  zinc- 
mines.  Or,  there  were  the  Kansas  wheat-fields,  where 
they  paid  two-fifty  a  day  and  keep.  A  number  of 
students  were  going  there  summer  after  summer,  and 
returning  with  their  hides  well  tanned  and  their  pockets 
well  lined.  Still,  on  second  thought,  he  would  not 
advise  me  to  tackle  harvesting.  I  might  not  be  able 
to  stand  it,  with  my  soft  hands  and  my  town  breeding. 

But  I  gave  very  little  thought  to  his  advice.  I  was 
longing  for  a  sight  of  New  York.  It  would  cost  fifty 
dollars  to  go  there  and  back,  but  I  tried  to  persuade 
myself  that  I  would  earn  enough  more  in  the  city  to 
make  it  worth  while.  If  the  worst  came  to  the  worst, 
I  could  always  get  a  job  at  the  machine.  I  was  known 
there.  I  had  friends  and  old  pupils.  Tutoring  was  a 
possibility,  particularly  with  my  added  prestige  as  a 
college  man.  There  was  no  limit  to  the  things  that  one 
could  do  in  a  large  town.  And  deep  down  in  my  foolish 
heart  I  knew  quite  well  that  all  these  calculations  were 
but  a  sham.  In  the  letter  I  wrote  to  Esther  I  honestly 
confessed  that  if  I  remained  away  from  my  own  people 
that  summer  I  would  feel  like  a  man  who  was  forced  to 
work  seven  days  in  the  week  and  would  be  unfit  to 
resume  work  in  the  fall. 

Then  Paul  somehow  divined  my  thoughts  and  sur 
prised  me  one  fine  June  morning  with  a  money  order  for 
thirty  dollars  and  a  letter  saying  that  he  would  not 
forgive  me  if  I  did  not  come  and  spend  the  vacations 

257 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

at  home.  Heaven  alone  knows  where  he  got  it,  but 
there  it  was;  and  I  sent  him  back  a  post-card  with  the 
picture  of  a  saddled  donkey  and  the  words  "Ready  to 
Pack"  underneath.  The  examinations  had  just  been 
held,  and  I  delayed  only  a  few  days  until  the  instructors 
returned  my  note-books  and  told  me  my  marks. 
Harvey  was  hanging  over  till  after  Commencement, 
because  the  closing  days  of  the  session  were  crowded 
with  dances  and  entertainments  and  he  was  cleaning  up 
a  lot  of  money  with  the  orchestra.  He  had  an  amused 
twinkle  in  his  eye  as  he  watched  me  excitedly  getting 
ready,  and  every  now  and  then  he  would  ask:  "Well, 
old  fish,  do  you  think  we'll  see  you  back  with  us  next 
year?  Or  do  you  think  you've  had  enough  of  the  wild 
and  woolly  West?"  And  when  I  told  him  with  great 
emphasis  that  nothing  in  the  world  should  keep  me 
away  from  Missouri  until  I  had  finished  the  course  he 
slapped  me  on  the  back  and  cried:  "Now  you're  talking. 
We'll  make  a  man  of  you  yet."  Then  he  would  add, 
"But,  say,  if  those  anarchists  get  a  hold  of  you  and 
keep  you  there,  let  a  fellow  know  what's  happening  to 
you.  Maybe  we  can  come  to  the  rescue." 

So  to  New  York  I  went,  and  lived  through  the  last 
and  the  bitterest  episode  in  the  romance  of  readjustment. 
During  that  whole  strenuous  year,  while  I  was  fighting 
my  battle  for  America,  I  had  never  for  a  moment 
stopped  to  figure  the  price  it  was  costing  me.  I  had 
not  dreamed  that  my  mere  going  to  Missouri  had 
opened  up  a  gulf  between  me  and  the  world  I  had  come 

258 


THE    ROMANCE    OF    READJUSTMENT 

from,  and  that  every  step  I  was  taking  toward  my 
ultimate  goal  was  a  stride  away  from  everything  that 
had  once  been  mine,  that  had  once  been  myself.  Now, 
no  sooner  had  I  alighted  from  the  train  than  it  came 
upon  me  with  a  pang  that  that  one  year  out  there  had 
loosened  ties  that  I  had  imagined  were  eternal. 

There  was  Paul  faithfully  at  the  ferry,  and  as  I  came 
off  he  rushed  up  to  me  and  threw  his  arms  around  me 
and  kissed  me  affectionately.  Did  I  kiss  him  back? 
I  am  afraid  not.  He  took  the  grip  out  of  my  hand  and 
carried  it  to  the  Brooklyn  Bridge.  Then  we  boarded 
a  car.  I  asked  him  where  we  were  going,  and  he  said, 
mysteriously,  "To  Harry's."  A  surprise  was  awaiting 
me,  apparently.  As  we  entered  the  little  alley  of  a  store 
in  the  Italian  quarter  I  looked  about  me  and  saw  no 
one.  But  suddenly  there  was  a  burst  of  laughter  from 
a  dozen  voices,  a  door  or  two  opened  violently,  and  my 
whole  family  was  upon  me — brothers,  a  new  sister-in- 
law,  cousins  of  various  degrees,  some  old  people,  a  few 
children.  They  rushed  me  into  the  apartment  behind 
the  store,  pelting  me  with  endearments  and  with  ques 
tions.  The  table  was  set  as  for  a  Purim  feast.  There 
was  an  odor  of  pot-roasted  chicken,  and  my  eye  caught 
a  glimpse  of  chopped  eggplant.  As  the  meal  progressed 
my  heart  was  touched  by  their  loving  thoughtfulness. 
Nothing  had  been  omitted — not  even  the  red  wine  and 
the  Turkish  peas  and  rice.  Harry  and  every  one  else 
kept  on  urging  me  to  eat.  "It's  a  long  time  since  you 

have  had  a  real  meal,"  said  my  sister-in-law.     How  true 

259; 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

it  was!  But  I  felt  constrained,  and  ate  very  little. 
Here  were  the  people  and  the  things  I  had  so  longed  to 
be  with;  but  I  caught  myself  regarding  them  with  the 
eyes  of  a  Western  American.  Suddenly — at  one  glance, 
as  it  were — I  grasped  the  answer  to  the  problem  that 
had  puzzled  me  so  long;  for  here  in  the  persons  of  those 
dear  to  me  I  was  seeing  myself  as  those  others  had 
seen  me. 

I  went  about  revisiting  old  scenes  and  found  that 
everything  had  changed  in  my  brief  absence.  My 
friends  were  not  the  same;  the  East  Side  was  not  the 
same.  They  never  would  be  the  same.  What  had 
come  over  them?  My  kinsfolk  and  my  old  companions 
looked  me  over  and  declared  that  it  was  I  who  had 
become  transformed.  I  had  become  soberer.  I  carried 
myself  differently.  There  was  an  unfamiliar  reserve, 
something  mingled  of  coldness  and  melancholy,  in  my 
eye.  My  very  speech  had  a  new  intonation.  It  was 
more  incisive,  but  less  fluent,  less  cordial,  they  thought. 
Perhaps  so.  At  any  rate,  while  my  people  were  still 
dear  to  me,  and  always  would  be  dear  to  me,  the 
atmosphere  about  them  repelled  me.  If  it  was  I  who 
had  changed,  then,  as  I  took  in  the  little  world  I  had 
emerged  from,  I  could  not  help  telling  myself  that  the 
change  was  a  salutary  one. 

While  calling  at  the  old  basement  bookshop  on 
East  Broadway  I  suddenly  heard  a  horrible  wailing 
and  lamenting  on  the  street.  A  funeral  procession  was 
hurrying  by,  followed  by  several  women  in  an  open 

260 


THE    ROMANCE    OF    READJUSTMENT 

carriage.  Their  hair  was  flying,  their  faces  were  red 
with  weeping,  their  bodies  were  swaying  grotesquely  to 
the  rhythm  of  their  violent  cries.  The  oldest  in  the 
group  continued  mechanically  to  address  the  body  in 
the  hearse:  "Husband  dear,  upon  whom  have  you  left 
us?  Upon  whom,  husband  dear?"  A  young  girl 
facing  her  in  the  vehicle  looked  about  in  a  terrified 
manner,  seized  every  now  and  then  the  hand  of  her 
afflicted  mother,  and  tried  to  quiet  her.  The  frightful 
scene,  with  its  tragic  display,  its  abysmal  ludicrousness, 
its  barbarous  noise,  revolted  me.  I  had  seen  the  like 
of  it  before,  but  that  was  in  another  life.  I  had  once 
been  part  of  such  a  performance  myself,  and  the  grief 
of  it  still  lingered  somewhere  in  my  motley  soul.  But 
now  I  could  only  think  of  the  affecting  simplicity,  the 
quiet,  unobtrusive  solemnity  of  a  burial  I  had  witnessed 
the  previous  spring  in  the  West. 

The  afternoon  following  my  arrival  I  flew  up-town 
to  see  Esther.  She  waved  to  me  and  smiled  as  I 
approached — she  had  been  waiting  on  the  "stoop." 
As  she  shook  my  hand  in  her  somewhat  masculine 
fashion  she  took  me  in  with  a  glance,  and  the  first  thing 
she  said  was,  "What  a  genteel  person  you  have  become! 
You  have  changed  astonishingly."  "Do  you  think  so?" 
I  asked  her.  "I  am  afraid  I  haven't.  At  least  they  do 
not  think  so  in  Missouri."  Then  she  told  me  that  she 
had  got  only  ten  points,  but  that  she  was  expecting 
three  more  in  the  fall.  She  was  almost  resigned  to 
wait  another  year  before  entering  college.  That  would 

261 


AN   AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

enable  her  to  make  her  total  requirements,  save  up  a 
little  more  money,  and  get  her  breath.  "A  woman  is 
not  a  man,  you  know,"  she  added.  "I  am  beginning 
to  feel  the  effects  of  it  all.  I  am  really  exhausted. 
Geometry  has  nearly  finished  me.  And  mother  has 
added  her  share.  She  is  no  longer  young,  and  this 
winter  she  was  ill.  I  have  worried  and  I  have  had  to 
send  money.  But  let  us  not  talk  about  my  troubles. 
You  are  full  of  things  to  tell  me,  I  know." 

Yes,  I  had  lots  I  wanted  to  say,  but  I  did  not  know 
where  to  begin;  and  the  one  thing  that  was  uppermost 
in  my  mind  I  was  afraid  to  utter  lest  she  should  mis 
understand  and  feel  injured  and  reproach  me.  I  did 
not  want  her  to  reproach  me  on  first  meeting.  I 
wanted  to  give  myself  time  as  well  as  her.  And  so  we 
fell  into  one  of  those  customary  long  silences,  and  for  a 
while  I  felt  at  home  again,  and  reflected  that  perhaps 
I  had  been  hasty  in  letting  the  first  poignant  reactions 
mislead  me.  Toward  evening  Esther  remarked  that  it 
was  fortunate  I  had  got  to  town  the  day  before.  If  I 
had  no  other  plans,  she  would  take  me  to  a  meeting  at 
Clinton  Hall  where  Michailoff  was  to  speak  on  "The 
coming  storm  in  America."  It  would  be  exciting,  she 
said,  and  enlightening.  Michailoff  had  just  come  out 
of  prison.  He  was  full  of  new  impressions  of  America 
and  "the  system"  generally,  and  one  could  rely  on  him 
to  tear  things  open. 

Of  course,  we  went,  and  the  assemblage  was  noisy 
and  quarrelsome  and  intolerant,  and  the  hall  was  stuffy 

262 


THE    ROMANCE    OF    READJUSTMENT 

and  smelly,  and  the  speaker  was  honest  and  fiery  and 
ill-informed.  He  thundered  passionately,  and  as  if  he 
were  detailing  a  personal  grievance,  against  American 
individualism  and  the  benighted  Americans  who  al 
lowed  a  medieval  religion  and  an  oppressive  capitalis 
tic  system  to  mulct  and  exploit  them,  and  referred  to  a 
recent  article  in  the  Zukunjt  where  the  writer  had 
weakly  admitted  the  need  of  being  fair  even  to  Chris 
tianity,  and  insisted  that  to  be  fair  to  an  enemy  of 
humanity  was  to  be  a  traitor  to  humanity.  I  listened 
to  it  all  with  an  alien  ear.  Soon  I  caught  myself 
defending  the  enemy  out  there.  What  did  these  folk 
know  of  Americans,  anyhow?  Michailoff  was,  after 
all,  to  radicalism  what  Higgins  and  Moore  were  to 
Christianity.  His  idea  of  being  liberal  was  to  tolerate 
anarchism  if  you  were  a  socialist  and  communism  if  you 
were  an  individualist.  And  as  we  left  the  hall  I  told 
Esther  what  I  had  hesitated  to  tell  her  earlier  in  the 
evening. 

"Save  yourself,  my  dear  friend.  Run  as  fast  as  you 
can.  You  will  find  a  bigger  and  a  freer  world  than 
this.  Promise  me  that  you  will  follow  me  to  the  West 
this  fall.  You  will  thank  me  for  it.  Those  big, 
genuine  people  out  in  Missouri  are  the  salt  of  the  earth. 
Whatever  they  may  think  about  the  problem  of  uni 
versal  brotherhood,  they  have  already  solved  it  for 
their  next-door  neighbors.  There  is  no  need  of  the 
social  revolution  in  Missouri;  they  have  a  generous 
slice  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

263 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

Maybe  I  was  exaggerating,  but  that  was  how  I  felt. 
From  this  distance  and  from  these  surroundings 
Missouri  and  the  new  world  she  meant  to  me  was 
enchanting  and  heroic.  The  loneliness  I  had  endured, 
the  snubbing,  the  ridicule,  the  inner  struggles — all  the 
dreariness  and  the  sadness  of  my  life  in  exile — had 
faded  out  of  the  picture,  and  what  remained  was  only 
an  idealized  vision  of  the  clean  manhood,  the  large 
human  dignity,  the  wholesome,  bracing  atmosphere  of 
it,  which  contrasted  so  strikingly  with  the  things 
around  me. 

No,  there  was  no  sense  in  deceiving  myself,  the  East 
Side  had  somehow  ceased  to  be  my  world.  I  had 
thought  a  few  days  ago  that  I  was  going  home.  I  had 
yelled  to  Harvey  from  the  train  as  it  was  pulling  out  of 
the  station  at  Columbia,  "I  am  going  home,  old  man!" 
But  I  had  merely  come  to  another  strange  land.  In  the 
fall  I  would  return  to  that  other  exile.  I  was,  indeed,  a 
man  without  a  country. 

During  that  entire  summer,  while  I  opened  gates  on 
an  Elevated  train  in  Brooklyn,  I  tussled  with  my 
problem.  It  was  quite  apparent  to  me  from  the  first 
what  its  solution  must  be.  I  knew  that  now  there  was 
no  going  back  for  me;  that  my  only  hope  lay  in  con 
tinuing  in  the  direction  I  had  taken,  however  painful 
it  may  be  to  my  loved  ones  and  to  myself.  But  for  a 
long  time  I  could  not  admit  it  to  myself.  A  host  of 
voices  and  sights  and  memories  had  awakened  within 
me  that  clutched  me  to  my  people  and  to  my  past. 

264 


THE    ROMANCE    OF    READJUSTMENT 

As  long  as  I  remained  in  New  York  I  kept  up  the 
tragic  farce  of  making  Sunday  calls  on  brother  Harry 
and  pretending  that  all  was  as  before,  that  America 
and  education  had  changed  nothing,  that  I  was  still  one 
of  them.  I  had  taken  a  room  in  a  remote  quarter  of 
Brooklyn,  where  there  were  few  immigrants,  under  the 
pretense  that  it  was  nearer  to  the  railway  barns.  But  I 
was  deceiving  no  one  but  myself.  Most  of  my  relatives, 
who  had  received  me  so  heartily  when  I  arrived,  seemed 
to  be  avoiding  Harry's  house  on  Sundays,  and  on  those 
rare  occasions  when  I  ran  into  one  of  them  he  seemed 
frigid  and  ill-at-ease.  Once  Paul  said  to  me:  "You  are 
very  funny.  It  looks  as  if  you  were  ashamed  of  the 
family.  You  aren't  really,  are  you?  You  know  they 
said  you  would  be  when  you  went  away.  There  is  a 
lot  of  foolish  talk  about  it.  Everybody  speaks  of  Harry 
and  me  as  the  doctor's  brothers.  Can't  you  warm 
up?" 

I  poured  out  my  heart  in  a  letter  to  Harvey.  If  a 
year  ago  I  had  been  told  that  I  would  be  laying  my 
sorrows  and  my  disappointments  in  my  own  kindred 
before  any  one  out  there,  I  would  have  laughed  at  the 
idea.  But  that  barbarian  in  Missouri  was  the  only 
human  being,  strangely  enough,  in  whom  I  could  now 
confide  with  any  hope  of  being  understood.  I  tried  to 
convey  to  him  some  idea  of  the  agonizing  moral  ex 
perience  I  was  going  through.  I  told  him  that  I  was 
aching  to  get  back  to  Columbia  (how  apt  the  name  was !) 
to  take  up  again  where  I  had  left  off  the  process  of  my 

265 


AN    AMERICAN    IN    THE    MAKING 

transformation,  and  to  get  through  with  it  as  soon  as 
might  be. 

And  in  the  fall  I  went  back — this  time  a  week  before 
college  opened — and  was  met  by  Harvey  at  the  station, 
just  as  those  rural-looking  boys  had  been  met  by  their 
friends  the  year  before.  When  I  reached  the  campus 
I  was  surprised  to  see  how  many  people  knew  me. 
Scores  of  them  came  up  and  slapped  me  on  the  back  and 
shook  hands  in  their  hearty,  boisterous  fashion,  and 
hoped  that  I  had  had  a  jolly  summer.  I  was  asked  to 
join  boarding-clubs,  to  become  a  member  in  debating 
societies,  to  come  and  see  this  fellow  or  that  in  his 
room.  It  took  me  off  my  feet,  this  sudden  geniality 
of  my  fellows  toward  me.  I  had  not  been  aware  how, 
throughout  the  previous  year,  the  barriers  between  us 
had  been  gradually  and  steadily  breaking  down.  It 
came  upon  me  all  at  once.  I  felt  my  heart  going  out 
to  my  new  friends.  I  had  become  one  of  them.  I 
was  not  a  man  without  a  country.  I  was  an  American. 


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